


His Smile Me Draws, His Frown Drives Me Away

by akathecentimetre



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, PWP, kink meme fills
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2015-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-17 02:39:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 22,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1370854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink meme fills, mostly Athos-centric. Tags and rating will change as I update!</p><p>8: d'Artagnan and Constance make Athos a proposal.<br/>9: Treville and the Queen share a secret pastime.<br/>10: Domestic!OT3, in a modern setting.<br/>11: A provincial Count finds himself with an unexpected and undesired guest on his hands. (Comte!Athos)<br/>12: Aramis and Porthos mete out punishment, and only later realize their mistake. <b>Warning: violence.</b><br/>13: If punishment is what is required, punishment is what Treville will give. <b>Warnings:</b> consensual physical violence/abuse, mild knifeplay. Featuring art by JakartaInn!<br/>14: Four times Athos couldn't handle Porthos's compliments, and one time where he not only accepted them, but did something about it. Featuring art by JakartaInn.<br/>15: Athos and Aramis, 3+1, forehead kisses. Featuring art by JakartaInn.<br/>16: Athos/Ninon, 'her pleasure.' Rated M.<br/>17: Richelieu has a debt to repay; unusually, it is beholden to a man he respects, and a Musketeer at that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Bee's Nest

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Моя добрая королева](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2571431) by [Lucky Jack (Lucky_Jack)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky_Jack/pseuds/Lucky%20Jack)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 1, from [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=392966#cmt392966): "Drunk d'Artagnan likes touching Athos's hair, and tousling it and is in general very fascinated by it. Aramis and Porthos are highly amused."

There are many kinds of drunkards in the world; almost as many, in fact, as there are men. But, Porthos knows, they can be sorted according to types. Anger, sorrow, happiness, madness, wickedness; he’s seen them all. Possibly the most amusing, however, is when a man previously aloof and proud becomes _tactile_ , the drink in his veins urging him physically towards others and towards a fascination with hands, arms, legs, faces that they would never display in the cold light of day. Even funnier was when such a person – such a boy, for example – came into contact with the type of drunk who tended to, first, withdraw from all human company; and second, to not care a whit when they were found in their despair, and required manhandling.

Which is why Porthos feels like he is about to burst, now, at the hours-long spectacle of d’Artagnan on Athos’s bed, completely and utterly slaughtered, and Athos, equally soused and sitting next to said bed, falling asleep under the ministrations of d’Artagnan’s very determined hands.

He didn’t know Athos even _had_ this much hair, for a start, nor that such interesting things could be done with it.

“Hmm,” d’Artagnan sighs, his nose wrinkling into a frown. He scrapes the dark mop off of Athos’s temples, piles it all on the top of the head; briefly regards his handiwork, and then, with a slight grunt and a shake of his own head, flattens it out again. “No. Not that. Umm – ”

The show has progressed through many stages. First came the obvious ideas of combing it all down, then standing it all up; pushing it around in circles until it swirled, pulling it down over the placid and mostly bemused face, sticking bits of it in the ears. Now, at midnight and the bottom of the fourth bottle, d’Artagnan has progressed to wanting all of them done at once, and, as he whines and runs his fingers up the back of Athos’s head until the strands of dark hair are standing up like a peacock’s tail, Athos’s hands fall into his lap as he succumbs to sleep, leaving d’Artagnan blinking like a confused puppy.

Porthos has long since given up on not laughing, and now his belly aches hard right at the base of his rib-cage; beside him, Aramis is quivering joyfully with the effort it’s taking not to do the same.

“My kingdom,” Aramis wheezes eventually, as d’Artagnan smacks his lips contentedly next to Athos’s ear and begins to curl into a little ball around the older musketeer’s neck, “for a portrait artist. A piece of paper and a stick of charcoal. Anything.”

“You wouldn’t,” Porthos grins. “Would you?”

“Just one copy,” Aramis says, nodding dazedly. “For you and I.” He pauses. “And one for Treville. In an emergency.”

Porthos staggers upright, sucking in a deep breath against the haze of wine in his head, and pounds Aramis on the shoulder. “C’mon. It’ll not be worth being here to see Athos complaining about how his arse hurts when he finally gets up t’morrow.”

“Oh, but – ” Aramis is getting up, but there is something wistful and happy in his tipsy face as he shuffles over to flip a strand of hair off of Athos’s twitching nose.

Porthos cackles and grabs Aramis’s arm, pulling them both through the door and into the night. “You and d’Artagnan, I swear,” he rumbles into Aramis’s ear. “You’ll be the death of us.”

“Mm? Is this a problem?”

“Never.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic title from [Spenser's _Amoretti_](http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/amoretti.html), adaptation (i.e. genderswitch) of a line in Sonnet XXI.


	2. Their King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ch. 2, from [this prompt:](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=462086#cmt462086) "Personal head cannon: Aramis and Porthos don't think too much of the king and have sworn their loyalty to Athos whom they think the world of. Cue, d'Artagnan does the same. Or it could be other types of kneeling. :P I just want the lovely boys on their knees for some reason." My take on this turned out to be rather h/c, hope that's okay! Set post episode 8, implied OT3/OT4, and post-d'Artagnan/Constance.

d’Artagnan is on his fifth glass of wine, and still trying to figure out whether he’s drinking to celebrate or mourn, when Porthos and Aramis haul him up by either arm and start dragging him through the garrison. Whoops of congratulation and hands rain down upon him from the assembled tipsy musketeers, slapping his shoulders, the stiff pauldron, which shines with rain. d’Artagnan takes it all in silence, aware that he is smiling like a loon and yet just minutes away from breaking at the thought of Constance’s face.

He doesn’t really care, in the end, what dastardly prank Porthos and Aramis have in store for him, but when they deposit him back on his feet in the doorway of one of the garrison’s small bedrooms, which is lit by flickering candles, he is surprised to see only Athos there, who looks more than usually sober. His uniform is pristine in the dim light, and shadows are being thrown onto an expression which d’Artagnan can only describe as _noble_. He does not wear his gloves, nor his sword.

“W’s this?” d’Artagnan asks, his tongue heavy with drink.

“Well,” Aramis says at his elbow, and for some reason he sounds _eager_ , “you’ve done your bit with kneeling to the king. Now, you get to kneel to _him_.”

Athos does not move, nor does the look on his face change, as d’Artagnan turns in bewilderment to Porthos. “What’s he talking about?”

“We’ve both done it,” Porthos says, with a wicked grin, and something lurches near d’Artagnan’s sternum as he wonders _Oh, wait_. “The king’s not fit to lick our boots,” the big musketeer continues, putting his arm around d’Artagnan’s shoulders, “and everyone knows it. We’ve sworn our loyalty to Athos. Makes much more sense, really.”

All sorts of strange things, strange thoughts, are swirling in d’Artagnan’s head, pushing aside the thought of Constance’s tears aside for the first time in days. “Do you,” he stammers. “I mean – is that – _all_ you do?”

“Ah,” Aramis sighs, smiling as he, too, layers an arm over d’Artagnan’s shoulders and leans in close. “Yes. There’s nothing else, not on this particular occasion. You’d think otherwise, wouldn’t you, but given as our dear leader here has a most inconvenient fetish for self-denial,” (d’Artagnan can _hear_ one of Athos’s eyebrows rising from across the room) “you’ll just be kneeling. But,” he adds, and now d’Artagnan can feel Aramis’s breath against his ear as he whispers, “there are ways. Later. If you’re interested.”

“Yes,” d’Artagnan blurts out, before he can stop himself, and heat shoots up his neck into his cheeks. “I mean – yes. Yes, I’ll kneel to you,” he says, addressing Athos for the first time since he came into the room. Athos’s eyes are dark, the same color as the Beaujolais sloshing through d'Artagnan's head.

Porthos and Aramis let go of him, leaving him swaying on his feet, and step forward in a way which makes d’Artagnan think they have done this many, many times before. Porthos takes one large step at Athos’s right and kneels on only one leg, the proud stance of a man paying tribute to a king. Athos puts a hand of benediction on the top of Porthos’s head in silence, long fingers sliding into bristly curls. Aramis is far more humble; both of his knees fold onto the floor, his feet propped beneath him, and he bows his head, hands clasped in his lap as though in prayer. Athos lifts his other arm from his side, cups Aramis’s chin and holds it there, lightly, in the palm of his hand.

The space left in the center, between Porthos and Aramis’s bodies, has been left open and inviting, and d’Artagnan gulps as he stumbles forward. He pauses to unbuckle his sword from his side and put it next to Athos’s on the small table; it would not be right, he reflects briefly, to approach his sovereign armed. The stone floor is cold beneath him as he falls onto it, far more messily than he planned; his clothes clatter and creak, and dull pain shoots through his kneecaps. He has not thought how to arrange himself, and so he just slumps there, suddenly realizing how tired he is, staring at the tops of Athos’s boots. “I do swear my loyalty to you, sir,” he mumbles.

He hears, rather than sees, Athos’s hands lift off of Aramis and Porthos, and then they are on his shoulders, and suddenly the world feels grounded again. “And gladly,” Athos murmurs, voice low and warm, “I accept it.”

d’Artagnan closes his eyes, and a moment later feels the feather-touch of what must have been Athos’s lips on the crown of his forehead.

And then one of those cold hands slides off of d’Artagnan’s shoulder and across his collar, ghosting down one side of his neck as though he is something precious. Aramis makes a noise of filthily interested pleasure to one side, and d’Artagnan feels a grin spread across his face.

Fealty, indeed…


	3. Penance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fill for [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=691718#cmt691718): "What if: after Athos found Aramis and the Queen together in the bed, he just gets incredibly jealous. Maybe he had feelings for Aramis for a long long time, but always managed to deny them even to himself. But this was just the last straw. He just can't stand it anymore, so he just drives Aramis against a wall and has his way with him. And of course Aramis is absolutely willing."

In retrospect, Aramis probably should have realized that that very particular tilt of Athos’s head, and the complete absence of color in the hands with which he crossed his arms and berated Aramis, promised condemnation far beyond words.

He hadn’t expected, however, Athos’s reaction to his cheeky insinuation of joining him in the bedroom he had so recently shared with Anne to be this, as, five minutes later, when they are checking the views from the various windows in all of the convent’s empty rooms and cells, Athos pulls him aside into a small chapel dedicated to Saint Monica and doesn’t close the door behind them.

“I think you need me, now,” Athos hisses. He shoves Aramis’s hips into the wall behind him with his own, the clash of buckles and sword hilts sending a clattering echo around the small room, and Aramis raises his eyebrows towards the half-open door.

“In a chapel, Athos? Really?"

“In a _convent,_ Aramis?” Athos whispers back, and he leans forward sharply, sinks his teeth into Aramis’s collarbone, and Aramis’s knees go weak. “In a _queen_?”

“Right, you’ve got me there,” Aramis groans. Athos snorts into his neck, lifts one and up and into Aramis’s hair and pulls it hard, exposing more of Aramis’s throat to his mouth. “Athos – ”

“Quiet,” his fearless leader commands, and takes a step back, shoving Aramis back into the wall, lines of rigid desire in his face. “This is punishment, you understand.”

“Oh, abso _lute_ ly,” Aramis nods, and his hands go to his belt, start undoing straps, unwinding tattered blue cloth. “For your sake, I would imagine. Or are you taking on the responsibility for others, too, of making sure I know my place?”

“I think it’s safe for you to assume,” Athos growls, and his voice is starting to do very funny things indeed to Aramis’s groin, “that Mother Superior would agree with me entirely.”

“Naughty,” Aramis grins as he drops his belts, and grins harder at how Athos’s breath hitches. “At least I was only desperate for a certain novice, once…”

Athos _surges_ into him, slams his shoulders back into the wall, a hand diving in one swift movement down into Aramis’s breeches, and Aramis jerks upwards into his palm, hard and wanting.

“Such stamina,” Athos mutters nastily. “We should rent you out.”

“Je _sus_.”

“Ah-ah. Blasphemy,” Athos breathes, his hand pressing quickly, his mouth at the corner of Aramis’s jaw. “You’re acquiring quite the debt of penance.”

“Aye,” Aramis moans, and puts an arm around Athos’s neck, pulls him in, feels the angry heat of him against Aramis’s thigh. “I have sinned, and will sin again.”

“Turn around,” Athos snarls, and Aramis’s head spins. He does it, immediately, used to following orders coming from that mouth (though, admittedly, this one doesn’t come up that often but _oh_ , when it does it always leaves him breathless).

Athos pulls at his trousers and smallclothes, leaves them messily around Aramis’s ankles and knees, and then presses warm flesh against Aramis’s backside which he pushes back into, his head dropping down so his forehead presses into the rough wall, reminding him that this is _actually_ happening, that this is Athos about to fuck him in a convent because he might have accidentally made love to a queen, and if this isn’t an act of reclamation that could rival the conversion of Paul he’s not sure what would be.

It is rough, exquisitely so, when Athos takes him, his smaller but lithe form enveloping Aramis, practically holding him up; when Athos loses control he comes apart but here and now he is relentless, his breath harsh in Aramis’s ear as his cock drives into him, asking him without words whether he really wants to risk this, wants _her_ instead of him, instead of this, and with Athos’s hand brutal on his cock and his hands scratched from where they grip at the stone wall, Aramis _keens_ , drops his head back onto Athos’s shoulder as the force of the thrusts into his arse bend him backwards.

“When we get back to Paris,” Athos whispers, his dark hair matted against Aramis’s cheek, “I’m going to tell Porthos.”

The very thought of Porthos’s punishment, as Athos’s cock slams into his prostate and stays there, makes Aramis come, stickiness suddenly making Athos’s hold on him, and his hold on reality, tenuous. Athos groans in his ear, a tortured, furious sound, and comes inside him, their thighs sliding slippery against each other.

Aramis takes a minute to find his footing, muscles too long unused protesting at every movement. “Are you not worried,” he gasps, eventually, as Athos’s hold on him loosens, “that the punishment would provoke the deed itself?”

“I suppose that’s up to you,” Athos says, his tone as calm as a millpond; as Aramis staggers to turn around, he sees that the other musketeer has remade himself, fully-clothed and standing proud and disdainful as ever, just the hint of a sharp, dangerous smile on his lips. “But you should know that the one is not required to receive the other.”

He turns and marches out of the door into the corridor beyond, immediately and again the soldier; leaving Aramis slumped against the wall, exhausted and not a little bit contrite – and wondering what on earth he owed for being so lucky.

His debt to God is, he suspects, completely insurmountable.


	4. That Renownèd Peer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ch. 4, from [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=165638#cmt165638): "The King needs bodyguards to escort him to a ball that may or may not have enemy agents present. Athos (along with as many others as author chooses, or none) is picked to accompany the Crown on the mission. The others are absolutely floored by how good he is at being a courtier. He gets everything right- even the attitude. I would love to see the reaction of the other three. Bonus points for confident and graceful dancing, extra bonus points if some fine ladies fall a little bit in love with his completely disinterested facade, a million extra bonus points if he is forced to fight off a would-be assassin without a weapon."
> 
> This turned out a little slashier and OT4-ish than I had intended at first, hope that's alright! This is for the OP, of course, but also for [JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn), who was looking forward to this. :-)

Athos had objected. Strenuously. And at length.

The others, however, as they sat twitching and idly playing with whatever was at hand at the garrison mess table, were, to a man, feeling predatory and highly, highly amused. Somewhere up above them, under watchful eyes, Athos was, probably for the first time in months, taking an honest-to-God bath. An hour earlier Bonacieux had sidled his greasy way into the garrison, carrying bolts of cloth in soft greys, blues, dark crushed purples. A milliner had followed, and then a cordwainer, and then a glover, and by the time the perfumer hurried in Porthos had had a stitch in his side from laughing.

Aramis started pacing just after lunch, keeping his eyes fixed eagerly on the balcony above. “Hose,” he giggled gleefully, as d’Artagnan drained the cup of wine he’d been nursing all morning, and grinned back. “He’d better be wearing hose.”

“He’ll be _spitting_ ,” Porthos cackled.

The door crashed open above them, and d’Artagnan leapt up from his seat and turned, and then, just as promptly, faltered, his mouth dropping open. Porthos, as he turned, knew exactly why, because he was in about the same state.

The Comte de la Fère stood at the top of Treville’s stairs, the gaggle of anxious tradesmen behind him, observing how their handiwork fit every slope of muscle, the angles of shoulderblades and hips, the turn of the elbows and wrists. They had not disappointed, Porthos thought, as he watched Aramis’s eyes widen, taking in every detail. There was no hose; just exquisitely tailored breeches, an embroidered tunic, slender boots which would not deign to even acknowledge the existence of such a thing as mud. A silver-black sword hilt, aged in truth or in counterfeit, picked up greys and metallic thread, the flash of a rare macaw’s feather in the tilted hat.

The Comte held out a casual hand, into which someone hastily pressed a pair of kid-skin gloves, and what had until so recently been Athos started to descend the stairs towards them, delicate and straight-backed, as though the ground offended him, bringing with him the scent of sandalwood and cinnamon.

“ _Pardieu_ ,” Aramis murmured, as Athos reached the bottom of the stairs. “Who knew you cleaned up so well?”

The look he got in return was nothing short of loathing – and yet not, for even d’Artagnan could see that the Comte would not deign to stoop so low as to feel anything beyond mild curiosity for a musketeer. Fingers snapped, making d’Artagnan jump, and Bonacieux hurried forward, settling a cloak of charcoal velvet over the Comte’s shoulders; behind them all, a groom was leading in a stallion which would have cost each of them a year’s pay at least, coat glossy with grooming and high spirits.

“If you speak of this to anyone, once it is over,” Athos said, calm and indeed downright pleasant, “I shall murder you all in your sleep.”

d’Artagnan, as the Comte mounted and spurred his way out of the garrison, on his way to the King’s summer residence, gulped. “I didn’t say anything,” he said quickly, looking between Porthos and Aramis, and grabbing for another tumbler of wine. “I didn’t say a _thing_.”

*

Fontainebleau in summer was always a seething nest of intrigue; the longest-serving musketeers of the regiment had always assumed that the heavy heat, and the pressing, unbearably ordered forest, lent themselves towards provoking what was, by all accounts, an unhealthy amount of sexual deviancy, boredom without remedies that did not include someone being pranked, and, this summer – which was why they were there, and why Athos was turning in a slow minuet down the length of the Louis’s sweltering ballroom with Madame de Chevreuse – a plot to kill the king and queen, whispers of which had reached Treville’s ears from the very highest circles, implicating possibly not just one, but a whole coterie of the king’s most trusted and beloved courtiers. It would be something, Porthos had thought, grimacing as he, Aramis and d’Artagnan stood guard at the doors like the trained lapdogs the court no doubt thought they were, to see the king lose control at the thought of his closest friends betraying him; but, next to the safety of the nation, they supposed it was worth it. Certainly Treville had thought it a worthy enough threat to demand a former life from Athos, to slip him, almost unnoticed – for he was, indeed, close to unrecognizable – into the King’s retinue, presented as a long-absent and well-traveled distant cousin of the royal line whose presence could be accepted without question.

Aramis was watching Athos avidly, taking in each graceful swoop of an arm, the briefest of touches of hands between him and Marie de Rohan, the point of a leg, the rustle of fabric as bodices and soft leather soles turned and twisted. There was a breeze that day, thank God, gusting hot and hard in through the open windows, and even the King and Queen had turned out to enjoy it; Louis jumped and stuttered through his dance, making the queen blush and the courtiers lower their eyes, attempting to move the more modestly so they did not outshine their sovereign by too far a distance.

In Athos’s case such an attempt failed miserably, at least in Aramis’s eyes.

*

They met up with him every evening to discuss their progress, during a stolen moment of the nightly feast Louis laid on for his guests, and even there, d’Artagnan sensed the gulf of education (education of all kinds) between them, the gulf of wealth, the power implied in the silver rings on the Comte’s fingers. Athos was all business in these encounters, whispering to them quickly and firmly about such-and-such a Duke, who bore a grudge for the over-taxation of his lands and who had a previously-unknown 'brother' recently arrived at court from the provinces; of a closeted Protestant who self-flagellated in his chambers each morning before putting on his silks; of a Countess whose jealousy of the Queen was so viciously put to her gaggle of friends as to be suspected of being more than idle gossip – and yet d’Artagnan was more preoccupied with his own constant astonishment, at the fact that he had not seen Athos touch a drop of wine since putting on his finery, at the straightness of his back and the authority in his voice.

During the day, he watched the Comte hunt with Louis, a falcon on his wrist, leaping off of his horse as trumpets blared to snatch the honor of being the first to hold up the bloodied trophy of a kill. He stood at the back of the banqueting hall, watching pale hands being offered bowls of rosewater in which to be cleaned before eating; once, he crept into Athos’s chambers early one morning to deliver a message and witnessed the ritual of dressing, the three manservants with heads bowed as the Comte held out limb after disinterested limb, the morning sun drenching him in light.

Three days in, the musketeers turned a corner and stopped dead, hanging back in the shadows of a nighttime corridor, at the sight of Madame de Chevreuse leading the Comte into her private apartments, and d’Artagnan swore to himself that he would never allow himself to feel such a swoop of painful jealousy again.

*

It came to a head, finally, as they knew it would, when the over-taxed Duke made his move. He was not alone, however, having an entire retinue of family, pages, and over-eager minor noblemen anxious to please him on his side, and so it was that the musketeers startled awake in the middle of the humid night to the sound of a pitched battle going on just outside the king’s chambers. Two Red Guards were dead, and Athos was vastly outnumbered; his sword had been torn from his grip by the falling body of the fourth man he had killed, and now he was standing in the doorway armed only with his fists, and losing, despite his best efforts.

Porthos charged in, broadsword flailing and easily finding its marks, and saw d’Artagnan grinning beside him; grinning, he knew, because finally this was familiar, finally they could see Athos in the snarl on his lips and the tangled mat of flying hair, in the drive of his elbows into the Duke’s sternum, in the blood that dripped from his hands as he was attacked, dishonorably, with daggers which he could not defend himself from. It was over quickly once the musketeers got involved, however; and the Comte, looking severely concussed, swayed on his feet, and then looked down at his ruined clothes, at the wounds on his palms and wrists.

“Mother of _God_ ,” he hissed, and stomped away from them, leaving them to clean up. “I shall have to _change_.”

Porthos looked at Aramis, and just laughed.

* 

They returned to Paris alone, frustrated that they were not allowed to attend the (out of necessity) secret ceremony at which, they understood, the Comte was to be awarded the Order of Saint Michel. It must have happened very quickly, however, and they must have ridden slower than they had realized, because when they arrived back in Paris Athos was already at the garrison, back against a post and muddy, booted feet up on a bench, his old sweat-stained hat over his face as he slept, bandaged hands folded across dark blue leather. Porthos nudged him before Aramis could shoo him away, and he came awake slowly, blinking at them fuzzily through the morning heat, clearly hungover.

“You’re back, then,” Porthos grinned.

“Yes,” Athos said wryly, settling his hat back onto his head and resetting his shoulders, upright and proud. “Would that I had never been away.”

And d’Artagnan, as he studied Athos’s profile in the morning light, thought to himself – realized – that it was he who had been blind, because it was the Comte that had never left.


	5. Let Him, If Please Him, Bind With Adamant Chain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ch. 5, from [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=742662#cmt742662): "Athos does something dangerous that ends up for the best and he saves a bunch of people or gets the bad guy or whatever. Maybe he gets a little scuffed up idk. After the mission, Treville asks to speak with him, and instead of giving kudos or asking for a detailed debrief, he immediately starts dressing down Athos for recklessness. Athos takes it for awhile but eventually he starts getting fed up and snaps back. Things get heated and eventually Treville let's slip his real issue- something along the lines of "someday, when you are in my place, you'll understand that your best soldier is worth more than the next ten combined." Not picky about words. Just the reveal that Treville sees Athos as his replacement and more precious to the garrison than anyone else. How does Athos react to the new information? Would prefer gen but can lean any direction the Filler would like."

Athos is lucky, Treville knows, as he stands at attention in front of his Captain, to have escaped so lightly.

The swelling of the black eye is just starting to subside into an angry purple; barked knuckles and slashes in leather crusted with the remnants of ignored blood speak for the rest. None of it needs Aramis’s stitching, but as far as Treville is concerned every cut speaks of an enemy’s crude desire to rob him of his lieutenant, and that he will not abide.

“What, exactly,” he asks conversationally, arms folded and leaning back as comfortably as he can manage on his behemoth of a desk, “did you think you were doing?”

“Completing the mission,” Athos says instantly, and Treville tilts his head, twists his lip in exactly the way he knows makes d’Artagnan shrink and Porthos bristle. Athos, of course, does neither.

“Your mission was to retrieve the suspect.”

“Which we did.”

“ _Not_ ,” Treville continues, ignoring the interruption, “to single-handedly assume the task of dealing with said suspect’s personal guard.”

“Everything was under control,” Athos says, his eyes refusing to lower, refusing to acknowledge Treville’s concern.

Treville takes a step forward, reaches out a hand, pulls aside the tightly-buttoned collar of Athos’s jerkin to reveal a dribble of blood near one sweaty collarbone. This wound is thin, but deeper, no doubt caused by a dagger rather than the point of a sword, because Athos would never allow a long blade to come this close to him. Then again, Treville knows, when one is outnumbered eight to one one’s priorities of defense, one’s awareness of one’s body, it’s capabilities, and the cover of only those weapons which can be held in two rapidly-tiring hands, tend to change somewhat.

He shoves the collar back into place, anger pressing in on his thoughts; Athos accepts his manhandling with nary a flinch, which only serves to make that anger turn white-hot and writhing at the base of Treville’s skull.

“I’ll have you know that I have always considered this sort of behavior from you completely unacceptable.”

“What sort of behavior, exactly?” Athos growls, and they are both angry, now, though with Athos it is always the fury of what he claims are misunderstood intentions. “Your suspect is caught, and I am here to report it to you. I don’t see – ”

“When I am gone,” Treville snaps – Athos’s spine jerks two inches further upright, and he is perversely gladdened by the sight – “the musketeers will expect far more responsibility from their Captain than this.” He turns away, waves a hand, the gesture of dismissal well-practiced and always effective. “Get out.”

The silence from Athos lasts two seconds longer than he had planned for. “Sir – ”

“Do I need to repeat myself?”

Athos goes, and Treville wonders to himself, later, what on earth had possessed him to play this final card.

It takes three days for Athos to act on the tension Treville can see in the lines of his shoulders when he spars with d’Artagnan and lets the boy win, down in the garrison; when he mishandles a shot badly enough that Aramis scuttles over to him and insists on checking that his wounds are healing properly, and Athos lets him; when he is distracted enough in his blocking practice with Porthos that he allows the landing of a nasty punch to the ribs, and leaves only half-drunk the glass of wine his comrade forces on him to bring back his breath. Treville is prepared for it, at least, when the quiet knock comes on his door late on a summer evening, and Athos is preceded into the room by an outstretched bottle of Armagnac, an ostensible peace offering.

He waits for Athos to pour them each a glass, and for his lieutenant to pull up a chair. For the first time in as long as he can remember, his musketeer does not meet his gaze. Athos sips at the brandy and leans forward, his elbows on his knees and head down, idling the glass between his fingers.

“I suppose,” he begins slowly, “I am one of the longest-serving here. That would be a reason.”

“Indeed.”

“Aramis would be a disaster.”

A laugh forces its way up Treville’s throat despite himself. “Dear God.”

“And Porthos would not want it.”

“True. He is the finest of men, but he would doubt himself.”

“And you think I do not.”

“No,” Treville says, shaking his head as he reaches for his own glass, lets the brandy smooth its way down the back of his throat. “You do. Differently. But you are among the best at concealing it.”

Athos looks at him for the first time, weary and angry, angry for Treville’s sake, he thinks. “And you believe this,” he says, waving a vague hand Treville takes as indicating his person, “would be a better choice? A Captain with no concern for his own welfare, a drunk whose friends and enemies know all too well how to take advantage of?”

His voice sinks into a whisper by the end of his second question, and Treville leans sharply over the desk, fixing Athos in his chair with his eyes.

“I would have the best soldiers in France led by the best amongst them,” he says, low and firm and negating any chance of argument. “A man who would look after them while denying himself. There is honor in that,” he adds, and watches Athos visibly recoil at an idea which contradicts five years of his existence, betrayed by the slightest of twitches in his hands. "Just as there is no shame in accepting the possibility of one’s importance.”

Athos is silent for a long moment, his eyes dropping downwards again. He finishes his drink, puts his empty glass on the desk in front of Treville, and stands, and as he does so Treville rejoices to see what he has said hit home, the few seconds it takes for Athos to collect himself telling him everything he needs to know, that his conception of Treville, of himself, has irrevocably changed.

“I shall never receive a higher honor,” Athos murmurs.

“I shall haunt you,” Treville smiles as he leans back in his chair, “just to see you change your mind, when the King calls you a brother.”

“Never,” Athos says, and he is smiling too, in his own way, shoulders relaxed and head tilted in acknowledgement of Treville’s satisfaction as he turns towards the door. “And I count upon you haunting us in person for many years to come, sir.”

“Count on it,” Treville calls. The door closes behind Athos with a gentle snap.

_As I count on you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick author's note: title of this chapter and the previous (That Renownèd Peer, Adamant Chain) are again adaptations from [Spenser's Amoretti](http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rbear/amoretti.html), in keeping with the title of the overall fic. I'm absolute rubbish at coming up with titles on my own, and Spenser's work contains so many multitudes that I can't help myself! *G*


	6. What Loyal Love Hath Bound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ch. 6, from [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=784646#cmt784646) [SPOILERS FOR FINALE EPISODE]: "Athos seemed to be the only one looking halfway content in the final scene. There is more to this than just being rid of Milady. The reason he is content and his brothers are all on a downer is that, while Porthos couldn’t have Alice, d’Artagnan can’t have Constance and Aramis certainly can’t ever have the Queen again, Athos is having mind-blowing sex with Captain Treville." 
> 
> Second Athos/Treville in a row, I'm thinking I like the pairing? *G*

“It doesn’t seem fair.”

Athos is well on his way to being drunk, sprawled lazily in Treville’s chair, a bottle of wine dangling from a limp hand, every muscle loose with the flight of adrenaline. Treville takes the bottle before it falls from Athos’s loose grip, glances at the window and sees no sign of the dawn, not yet. Athos’s hands and face are lit only by the sputtering candle Treville had lit hours ago after their return from the palace as Treville loosens his collar, puts down the last of the paperwork he is readying for the morrow, and lifts the bottle to his own lips.

“What doesn’t?”

“Them,” Athos says, with a vague wave of the hand that manages to eloquently express only one thing; there are only so many things Athos would refer to in quite that manner of voice, with that particular undertone of love and weariness and gratitude. “Their store of rewards for their work is running low of late.”

Treville had heard them, in the garrison, earlier that evening; Porthos grousing under his breath about money, Aramis leaning back and staring at the darkening sky as though the clouds would grant his dreams, d’Artagnan pacing, the look on his face one of intense and regretful longing. _Money. Glory. Love. We are made paupers_.

Treville finishes the bottle, puts it down on the desk, and comes around its corner to Athos, perching next to his lieutenant’s outstretched legs, observing the pinched lines around eyes and mouth. “The lot of a musketeer is never easy,” he says; he reaches out experimentally, his tongue made thick by the late hour and the drink, and picks up Athos’s hand, examining joints and the callouses on the palm. “You are all well aware of that. There’s nothing fair about it.”

“And yet I am the one who is granted the luck of all of us,” Athos murmurs, and his eyes open sleepily, seeking out Treville’s, gazing idly at their entwined fingers. “I do not deserve you.”

Treville stands, pulls Athos onto his feet, cups stubbled cheeks roughly between his hands. “If you think I will allow what has happened between you and that woman to drag you back to whence you came before I found you,” he mutters fiercely, “you, my man, are sorely mistaken.”

He feels Athos’s breath catch in his chest beneath his forearms, and his musketeer kisses him wantonly, thanks for his captain’s unquestioning understanding seeping through every pore, through every grasping digit as Athos allows himself to be wrapped firmly in Treville’s burly arms. It takes but a moment to pull him through the door to Treville’s private chambers, the sanctuary so close to and yet carefully kept so far away from his duties; Athos is the only one of his men he has ever brought here, the only one he has ever pushed down onto the wide bed, the only luxury an old soldier allows himself; the only one he has become practiced in undressing, unbuttoning the doublet with one hand as the other rakes itself through his musketeer’s hair, laying his throat bare to Treville’s mouth.

Athos moans as Treville leaves bites and kisses along his collarbones and the sensitive junction between neck and shoulder, a deep-throated, desperate sound, and pushes upwards into the press of Treville’s hips. It is the work of only a few minutes, the captain knows from experience, to undo the breeches, push the boots off of stockinged feet, pull the shirt over a tousled head and leave Athos near naked and breathing deeply, shuddering through the effort it takes to keep still while Treville strokes him through his smallclothes, as his free hand undoes his own tunic, slipping golden fleurs-de-lis out of wide buttonholes. Athos is ever the subordinate in these liaisons between them, ever the soldier waiting and patient for instruction, to the point where Treville has over the months and years often found himself distracted by the possibility of slipping innuendo into his daily, more mundane orders, wondering how Athos would react if he were to beckon to him on the floor of the garrison and tell him to get on his knees for him in front of the world. Here, though, in this room, there is no need for such games.

There is no need to deny what Athos needs, here and now, either, what his exploratory kisses down Treville’s chest and abdomen auger, what means the clutch of long fingers at Treville’s thighs. Treville turns Athos over and pulls him onto his hands and knees, smoothes his palms over the planes of shoulderblades, the sharp dip inwards to narrow hips, uses his thumbs to spread apart pale cheeks. Athos’s fingers spasm into the bedsheets and remain there, holding fast, at the touch of Treville’s cock, and he makes a long, breathy sound resembling a half-forgotten prayer as the captain enters him, arms shaking as Treville curses, drops a kiss to the back of Athos’s neck, and kneels upright, hands firm and demanding on the musketeer’s waist, to fuck him. Neither of them are the sort to be demonstrative, nor loud, lovers; Treville takes intense pleasure in these moments beyond the sensation of tight muscles enveloping him or the sight of Athos’s back arching downwards to allow him to drive deeper, instead focusing on what he can do to the rhythm of Athos’s breath, whether he can incite him to blasphemy, to grind out Treville’s Christian name, his title, his devotion.

“You make me forget,” Athos pants, head hanging low between his shoulders, and Treville leans over him, melds his stomach to the curve of Athos’s back as his hips continue to move, one hand reached forward to turn his lieutenant’s chin until his nose is pressed into the side of Athos’s open mouth and Treville can feel hot breath on his shoulder. “Make me forget – ”

The Captain twists Athos’s neck harder, feels the jolt of tension that courses through the musketeer’s body, tautening and tightening muscles in his back and the thighs pressed against Treville’s. He keeps up a steady stroke, forcing them further towards the straw mattress, collapsing Athos inwards under his heavier weight until he is pressed against Athos’s prostate and rocking there, covering the racing pulse of blood in the neck below him with his thumb as Athos hisses through his teeth and comes into the sheets, face screwed up against the urge to scream and hands clutching at Treville’s wrists. The Captain is not far behind his soldier, growling filthily into matted, dark hair, a slow, undulating movement of hips and untangling arms finally resettling them until Treville is curled around Athos’s back, his seed cooling rapidly on their thighs.

“Maybe it is selfish of me, indeed,” Treville rumbles, teeth nipping at Athos’s ear, “to take you, and deny them.”

“I doubt they would need much persuasion to share in what we have,” Athos murmurs, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “But, perhaps,” he adds in a whisper, chapped lips gentle on one of Treville’s toughened palms, “I shall keep you to myself, after all.”

Treville looks at the window, at the lightening dawn. They can have, he judges, two hours like this; two hours in which they do not need to think of what may become of them.

It is far too short a time, in truth, but he will take it gladly when he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title via Spenser, as per usual...


	7. Breaking His Prison Forth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ch. 7, from [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=804614#cmt804614): "The Musketeers (or at least one of them- I like Athos) are captured or something and end up in an illegal underground fighting ring. It's very dangerous stuff, with huge amounts of money changing hands and the fighters kept under lock and key by the 'Masters' who sponser the fights. The Musketeers who haven't been captured try to keep track of the situation by going to the fights in disguise and following the progress of their comrade, passing medical supplies and food when they are able, but this is too big for them to crack open on their own. Musketeers are worth huge money in this world, and a fight that pits the King's best soldier against the Court of Miracles' best brawler is a huge event. That would be a good time for the Musketeers to break up this whole ring of evildoers and rescue their man, right?"
> 
> Not an exact fill, but I hope you enjoy it, OP! **TW: violence and abuse.**

A fist landed with a crunch, indicating broken or at least cracked ribs, and in a crowd of sweaty, filthy men, hating the boisterous shouts echoing in his ears, Porthos winced and kept his eyes firmly closed. He had no desire, after yet another night in this hell, to see who it was who was on the ground, who it was who was groaning into blood-crusted sand, being urged by the more foul-mouthed of the punters jostling him to get up and fight again.

In the end, though, he did look up, setting his mouth into a grimace to stop himself from shouting; because if the killing blow had been landed and Athos was dead, he would never forgive himself for having missed it, for not being there to witness his brother’s final moments.

It was not Athos, as it turned out, who was hurt – it was he who had delivered the blow, who stood shirtless and filthy in the ring, stalking like a wounded cat around the fallen body of his challenger as the man at his feet writhed through the pain of his collapsed chest. Porthos breathed in once, and held it.

“ _Cinq!_ ” the crowd roared. _“Six – sept – huit – neuf – !_ ”

“Gentlemen,” crowed the burly man at the edge of the sandpit, all pipe-smoke and a black-toothed grin, pouches of coins clinking in his pockets – the man Porthos had sworn to kill. “The house wins!”

*

In retrospect, they regretted that so much had come down to chance.

If they hadn’t been on leave, they would have realized he was gone after a few hours instead of a few days; if it hadn’t been Athos, they wouldn’t have thought that he just wanted to be alone, and to drink, and figured that he needed his customary breakdown every once in a while just to make sure he stayed sane; if it had been up to d’Artagnan, instead of Porthos and Aramis, who thought they knew better, one of them would have checked on his rooms after the third day.

It was only on the fourth day, when a taunting street urchin nagged them about a Musketeer who’d been captured by La Roux, that they realized anything was wrong; and because La Roux was a slippery bastard and a powerful one at that, and it had taken a lot of disguises and cunning to get a straight answer out of any of his associates, let alone get an invitation to the constantly-moving illegal fights, they only saw Athos again after a week’s worth of the ring; and after their first night in that particular sweltering shithole d’Artagnan had staggered out into the cool night and vomited into some poor soul’s water barrel.

They’d determined, by the second night, that all of the fighters La Roux kept were probably former soldiers. It took a special sort of man to fight for this house, to take what they took every day and still get up the next morning, who threw off the shackles La Roux’s men kept them in and walked determined and deadly into the ring against the enormous, brutish challengers who were brought from far and wide to Paris by their handlers for the chance of robbing La Roux’s fat pockets. Even so, it seemed a Musketeer was considered a choice prize indeed, for the word had spread – _La Roux’s got one. He’s got a little man who’ll beat you down into the dirt without killing you, who’ll humiliate you, who’ll know if your man’s got a knife and when he gets it out of your boy’s hand, you’re finished._

Athos hadn’t gone easily, that was for sure. On that first night Porthos, in his disguise of Court rags, had nearly crashed straight through the barriers into the ring without a second thought, rage clouding his vision red, at the sight of Athos’s ribs showing through his skin, at the red-raw marks around his wrists, bruises in the shape of thumbs at the base of his throat. On the second night, there were stripes on his back, and Aramis spent the entire evening cursing under his breath, calling down ruin and hellfire onto the culprits.

At some point Athos must have calmed, allowed the men to manhandle him in private without complaint, because he could not have lasted an entire week without food. He was still there, and upright, and caught sight of them on that first night, nodded at them quickly as he was taken away to wherever it is he and his fellow fighters – some there willingly, no doubt, and others not – were kept caged. They sent word to Treville immediately after finding him, of course, but the Captain was in the countryside with the king on yet another of his endless hunting trips, and most of the garrison was with him. It was a day’s ride to get there with a message, and would be at least another, if not longer, before they had enough help to destroy the ring. And even when the regiment arrived back it would not be easy to do it without dealing wanton death; there were women there in the crowd every night, the girls La Roux ran for his patrons, and sometimes children, too, grubby little things clinging to their mothers' skirts and cheering whenever one of the fighters got overzealous and twisted their beaten opponent’s head in their big hands, snapping necks as though they were twigs.

And so they waited, and worried, and exhausted themselves with their anger. At the end of that second night, a new – to them – entertainment took place. Athos was chained to a post, hands behind his back, and a queue formed; any man who knocked him out with less than three hits, it was announced, beat the house. d’Artagnan leaped forward as if scalded, and his look of furious betrayal when Porthos and Aramis held him back made Porthos hate himself.

Athos lasted through six punters and only fainted, slipping down the post to land in a crumpled heap, in between two men in the line; because he was Athos, and would never allow himself to be beaten by such men as this. His face, as he was dragged away through the sand by his bare feet, was barely recognizable under the blood. Aramis’s face had lost all its usual florid color hours before, and afterwards, as he and Porthos staggered home, he said what all three of them had been thinking for days.

“Never,” Aramis choked out, leaning heavily on Porthos’s shoulder. “I shall never forgive this.”

Who it was, exactly, he would despise remained unspoken, and Porthos felt the weight of accusation, of self-loathing, in Aramis’s voice (even the hatred for Athos, for being so bloody solitary and so unwilling to ask for the company that would have saved him) – everything he had felt over and over through those two nights, and more.

The next morning Treville’s horse thundered into the garrison courtyard with the Captain on its back, black fury in his face, followed by a good twenty-five of their comrades, and Porthos’s heart leapt into his mouth. It was agonizing, the wait until nightfall; the wait for d’Artagnan to go out and come back, slipping his hood off of his face, with the location of that evening’s bout. They were to have the boy go first, to try to spirit away some of the women and children, and then they would go in armed like hellions, muskets strapped to Aramis’s back, two swords on Porthos’s hips, pistols bristling in Treville’s boots and sleeves. They would wear their cloaks, announce their allegiance proudly with bright colors in the dark, make it clear that no gutter-born criminal with a taste for blood and death would ever again dare to rob France of one of its finest men.

It happened quickly, in the end. One of the women d’Artagnan had shooed out of the warehouse saw the blue-clad Musketeers waiting, and screamed; they charged in, and it was easy work, doing it with swords instead of mangled fists, killing the ringrunners first, then dispatching the punters who chose to resist rather than run. In the melee, Porthos caught sight of Athos, who had clearly been in the middle of a bout, face bruised and chest bloody, whirling like a dervish, catapulting and grinding the men who had until so recently tormented him down into the grit into which he had bled. He was staggering to behold, still very much alive and furiously, fiercely so, and for the very briefest of moments, Porthos wondered whether this – this sort of sight – was what appealed to these lowest of men. A chance of witnessing desperate beauty, bloody and unbowed.

He stopped thinking about that, mercifully, when his double-edged broadsword hacked La Roux’s head from his shoulders. As the ring quieted, leaving only dead men and the sound of fleeing footsteps, the musketeers set about picking up the scattered bags of coins from La Roux’s corpse; it was Treville, in the end, who paced his way through the bodies, put his arm around Athos’s thin shoulders where he knelt, spent, iron cuffs around his wrists; it was the Captain who lifted him up, carried him out to a waiting carriage bound for the house of the King’s physician, with Aramis, Porthos, and d’Artagnan trailing shaking and anxious in his wake.

Athos reached out for Porthos as Treville lifted him up onto the cushioned seat, and Porthos grabbed his hand between both of his. “Okay, it’s alrigh’. We gotcha.”

“Next time we spar,” Athos murmured, and to Porthos’s immense relief there was that old sardonic smile on his chapped lips, “I might even beat you.”

Porthos grinned so hard his face hurt, and reached inward, settling the bleeding hand on Athos’s lap as Treville snapped the door closed and motioned to the driver to whip up the horses. “Fat chance, mate,” he laughed.

 _Forget beating me_ , he thought, and stood still in the cold pre-dawn air, watching his breath rise upwards in clouds of steam as the carriage rolled away. _Just this once, I’ll let you win._

_*_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **EDIT: this fill now has an art fill too, by JakartaInn -[here!](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1405777/chapters/2948842)**
> 
> A/N: anyone here watch _Ripper Street_? I was having [all sorts of Bennet Drake feels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE-eDxjDI_4) while writing this. **TW for this video too, btw, violence and lots of blood.**
> 
> And tonight's Spenser title comes from Sonnet LXXIII:
> 
> BEING my selfe captyued here in care,  
> My hart, whom none with seruile bands can tye:  
> but the fayre tresses of your golden hayre,  
> breaking his prison forth to you doth fly.  
> Lyke as a byrd that in ones hand doth spy  
> desired food, to it doth make his flight:  
> euen so my hart, that wont on your fayre eye  
> to feed his fill, flyes backe vnto your sight.  
> Doe you him take, and in your bosome bright,  
> gently encage, that he may be your thrall:  
> perhaps he there may learne with rare delight,  
> to sing your name and prayses ouer all.  
> That it hereafter may you not repent,  
> him lodging in your bosome to haue lent.


	8. That Which Fairest Is, But Few Behold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ch. 8, from [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=740870#cmt740870): "D'Artagnan and Constance are involved (preferably after M. Bonacieux's. . .unfortunate demise) and both breathlessly confess their attraction to Athos. How they acquire him is totally open, but I would love to see them gang up on him, as it were, once they have him."

Constance smoothes down the front of her dress for the umpteenth time; turns away from the window, and takes two steps towards d’Artagnan in his chair, resisting the urge to put a hand on his shoulder. “If he’s late, I may lose my courage,” she says.

“It’s Athos,” he says, picking up one of her trembling hands and kissing two of her knuckles quickly, in sequence. “He’s never late.”

They had agreed, as they’d set the table with cold cuts, fresh baguette and a delicately-arranged bowl of fruit – Constance fidgeted when she was nervous – that d’Artagnan, should his advances not be unwelcome, would touch him first. He had claimed, and of course it made perfect sense, that they touched in the garrison all the time; that Athos was used to the touch of a man, the clap of hands and arms at the conclusion of a good bout, to the sight of sweat on scars and ridges of muscle in the act of re-dressing at the end of long days in the field.

How he will react to Constance, on the other hand, is an entirely different question to which they have no answers.

They have come into contact before, of course. The very first time they had met, it had begun with a touch – that of her hand under his chin, lifting it from his chest from where he sat slumped outside the garrison, drunk, on a very early morning on which Bonacieux had brought her with him to the regiment as he delivered the wares of a new commission to Treville, bright, long bolts of blue under his arms. Constance had hung back outside the archway, noticed the soldier crouched on the ground, and woken him with the tips of her fingers, asking if he was alright, if he needed water, or indeed anything else, for it was clear he needed far more than what she could offer. Several weeks and several interventions later – and after her introduction to Aramis and Porthos, who had started out by making jokes about ‘a woman’s touch’ whenever she broke down their doors with the news of Athos’s latest binge, but rapidly progressed to professing their gratitude and respect for her in the speed in which they rose at her news, and the brush of their lips on her hands in thanks – Athos had come to her, sober, and offered her his service and apologies in that quiet way in which only he could convey regret, and thanks. 

They had walked together, sometimes, when she was out and about doing her chores in Bonacieux’s absence, talking of nothing in particular; and when d’Artagnan blew like a summer thunderstorm into her life, the news that he was there for Athos, and that the older man was very determinedly taking him under his wing, seemed to complete a circle in her that she hadn’t known was being drawn in the first place.

The revelation that d’Artagnan – in those first heady days when they’d profaned her marriage and debauched every room in her house – whispered Athos’s name in his sleep, and occasionally even in unguarded moments when he was awake, had planted the seeds of an idea in her mind which had resulted in this moment, now: her standing at d’Artagnan’s side, her stomach swirling with fear and want, and then, finally, the firm knock at the door. d’Artagnan rises instantly, kisses her cheek, and goes to open it, leaving Constance to straighten her sleeves and gather in her daydreams, hoping against hope.

Athos takes off his hat as he enters, scanning the room as he and his fellow soldiers always do for the simple reassurance of knowing what it held, and bows his head to Constance as his other hand holds aloft a bottle of wine. “Madame Bonacieux. I hope I’m not late.”

“Not at all,” she says, bustling over to take the bottle and – in her first act of courage – she rocks upwards on her toes, pressing the briefest of greeting kisses to his stubbled jaw. “Thank you for contributing to the feast.”

Dinner is a busy affair, and informal, as d’Artagnan rises from his seat to fill their cups, and Constance gets up more than once to bring in further plates, to show both men something pretty she had bought at market, to point at something out of the window as she regales them with the latest street gossip. She is aware she is babbling, and that Athos sees it, that he follows her carefully around the room with his eyes. He is relaxed, though, nothing more than curious at her exuberance, sitting sideways in his chair with his glass of wine in one hand, sword gone from his belt and leaning up by the door next to d’Artagnan’s, and she thinks – hopes – that this is a good sign.

As the light in the room begins to fade, they all fall silent. It starts as a companionable quiet, and then Constance sees Athos shift slightly in his seat, reacting to what she knows has been a rising sensation of tension between her and d’Artagnan, signified by glances and the repression of shakes or nods of the head. Athos begins to reach out one hand for Constance’s, and then appears to think better of it, leaving it stranded between them on the table. “Is everything all right?” he asks in one of his quieter, deeper voices, and Constance cannot stop the shiver that begins at the base of her spine and rises into her shoulderblades. "Monsieur Bonacieux is not here, I see.”

“In Le Havre,” she breathes. “Taking delivery of a shipment from England.”

“Ah,” Athos replies, with a slight nod – and then, finally, one of his eyebrows begin to rise, as d’Artagnan, who is out of his seat and looming over both of them in the candle-lit darkness, stands behind him, reaches over the back of the chair, and settles both hands hesitantly on Athos’s shoulders.

Constance leans forward a few inches. The movement catches Athos’s gaze, and holds it, as d’Artagnan presses downwards, making his touch firm, slides one hand towards the collar and the pale neck.

Athos shakes his head minutely, staring directly at Constance, the realization in his eyes one of flint rather than fear. “You know not what you do,” he whispers.

“Allow the lady the privilege of knowing what she wants, why don’t you,” d’Artagnan murmurs as he leans down and presses his nose into the side of Athos’s neck. The older musketeer does not flinch away from the touch, and indeed as d’Artagnan’s lips find his pulse his mouth opens slightly and his breath catches in his throat, and Constance thrills to the sound.

“What she wants?” Athos asks, and for the first time, Constance hears his confusion, his reluctant hope.

“What _we_ want,” Constance says, and finally allows herself to move, crossing the small distance between them, settling herself and her voluminous skirts into Athos’s lap. His hands settle on her waist at first, she is sure, only out of a rigorous sense of chivalry, to make sure she doesn’t fall; but as she leans down and captures his lips with her own, her forehead brushing against d’Artagnan’s hair, his fingers seize around her, arms wrapping further around her waist, his mouth pliant under hers as, she knows, he allows her to claim him.

d’Artagnan groans into both of their ears, and she can feel how the sound runs through Athos, makes his closed eyelids shiver and his back straighten under their ministrations. His mouth leaves hers, presses to the heave of her bosom, moves only to kiss the hand next to him as d’Artagnan, too, reaches out and pulls her breast out of her corset for Athos’s teeth.

She kisses d’Artagnan fiercely, her limbs arching into Athos’s touch, into the promise of what is to come, and smiles against his lips.

Her husband would be proud of her, she thinks briefly, later, with Athos inside and above her in her marital bed, and d’Artagnan slowly taking his comrade to pieces from behind. Two for the price of one, or indeed for no great cost at all, was after all always better than settling for nothing.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aw, today's Spenser inspiration gave me so many Constance feels, and he is _so_ good at the killer last line. Sonnet XV:
> 
> YE tradefull Merchants that with weary toyle,  
> do seeke most pretious things to make your gain:  
> and both the Indias of their treasures spoile,  
> what needeth you to seeke so farre in vaine?  
> For loe my loue doth in her selfe containe  
> all this worlds riches that may farre be found;  
> if Saphyres, loe her eies be Saphyres plaine,  
> if Rubies, loe hir lips be Rubies found;  
> If Pearles, hir teeth be pearles both pure and round;  
> if Yuorie, her forhead yuory weene;  
> if Gold, her locks are finest gold on ground;  
> if siluer, her faire hands are siluer sheene,  
> But that which fairest is, but few behold,  
> her mind adornd with vertues manifold.


	9. My Sovereign Queen Most Kind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CH. 9, from [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=751878#cmt751878) \- "Treville is a fan of romance novels." I combined this with a few prompts which asked for Anne-Treville interactions (one of which was my own), because the thought of them reading together/in tandem was just too sweet to resist. Hope you enjoy it!

*

The discovery had happened in her early years in France, soon after her second miscarriage, in 1622. Anne had been near her lowest, then, and missing Spain terribly; betrothed to her royal husband at eleven, ushered into his bed at fourteen, and then, at twenty-one, lying in her sickbed alone and with no further tears to cry – and certainly not wanting to cry any longer, not in front of all of her hovering attendants – she had begged one of her ladies to bring her something to read. Something to lift her spirits, something to take her far away from her traitorous body. Her servant’s face had creased with worried disapproval, but she did her duty – she brought Anne a dog-eared copy of Cervantes, and Anne’s healing began.

It had been soon after that when she had been in her library, lost in d’Aubigné’s _Les Aventures du baron de Faeneste_ , when the door had banged open, startling her out of her seat, and the captain of Louis’s new regiment of Musketeers – Treville, was that his name? – strode in, and stopped dead at the sight of her panicked face.

“Your pardon, your Majesty,” Treville had said, bowing low; she had found him leonine and imposing in his first presentation to the court, and there, in her unguarded state, she was genuinely frightened of him, of the bolt of shocking blue across his broad shoulders and the uncompromising calculation in his eyes. “I was told the King was here, and I have matters of his security to discuss with him.”

“Well, he is not here,” she said, quickly closing the d’Aubigné and shoving it in amongst a pile of other, far more respectable texts on a nearby table. “I’m afraid you must have been misinformed.”

“No doubt,” he said gently, hat in hand and inclining his head towards her, apparently trying to put her at ease. “I shall wait outside.”

He turned to leave, and then, after a pause which made Anne’s breath catch nervously in her throat, he turned back, with a smile pulling at his lips. “If you should so desire, your Majesty,” he said quietly, “I would be happy to lend you my copies of Antoine de Nervèze. I find his _Avantures de Lidior_ most refreshing.”

Her mouth dropped open, and her hands went slack at her sides – not just for her own sake, but at the thought of this powerful, battle-hardened, proud man reading such _amours diverses_. “You – ” She swallowed, and tried to remember her regal bearing. “How many do you have?”

“Oh, it must be above a hundred, by various authors,” he said, affectionate amusement suffusing through his scarred face. “I am forced to keep them well-hidden, unfortunately. I would never doubt my men’s loyalty but one does wonder what impression one’s habits make, of course.”

“Of course,” she choked out, still stunned. “Do you – do you have his _Amours d’Olympe et de Birene_?”

“I do indeed.”

“Then I shall have that,” she said, drawing herself primly upright.

He bowed to her in silence and departed, and thus began years of what she could only describe as a clandestine love affair – a love for the books, in which both of them were willing, if not eager, participants. She could never repress her laughter at the image, as she thumbed her way through pages thick with heavy, poor-quality ink that rubbed off on her fingers, of Treville in his drafty office at the Musketeer garrison, avidly devouring the latest installment of d’Urfé’s _L’Astrée_ , which they would then discuss in stolen whispers the next time he was at court; she relished the look of confusion on Richelieu’s face whenever she took the Captain’s arm and walked with him slowly around ornamental gardens, ostensibly talking of her husband but actually trading their quiet glee at the conclusion, or the continuation, of the epic travails of damsels, poets, and tragic heroes.

These moments were, in fact – as the disorganized piles of books by De Verville, Des Escuteaux, De Montreux, De Rojas, Sorel, De Bergerac, Du Souhait, De Lannel, Mareschal (and by women, too, women like Madame de Lafayette and Madame de Villedieu) grew beneath her bed and in traveling trunks to which only she had the keys – some of the happiest she had ever experienced in France.

*

The occasion of a queen’s birthday was always one which inspired, she thought, the most horrendously lavish waste. Louis tended towards the extravagant in all things, of course, but as September neared for yet another year he began his planning for Anne’s celebrations weeks in advance, ushering servants and aristocrats alike around the gardens at Fontainebleu, where she was to be feted on the 22nd. Anne tried to tune it out as best she can, taking the solace of quiet in her ladies, and, when she could, in the latest volume of M. La Calprenède’s _Cassandre_.

The day came at last, and blue-clad Musketeers twirled their horses in fluid formations in courtyards and gardens as she was escorted through the grounds, fireworks bursting high above her head in the long evening light. Louis, at her elbow, was delighted more with the spectacle he had ordered than with her; though she still felt a fondness for his enthusiasm, and found it no chore to return his smiles and insistence on happiness.

The mounting pile of gifts in her rooms, having come from seemingly every corner of Christendom, exhausted her, as did the constant stream of visitors she received throughout the day with Treville standing upright and firm at her side. She caught his eye, finally, as she finished a small meal of fruit and wine long hours after the promenade and was readying herself to retire, and, motioning to her ladies to stand back, she glided over to him in her richly-embroidered gown.

“I thank you for your perseverance, Captain,” she murmured as he bent over her hand. “It cannot be the most pleasant of duties, keeping track of all of these – well-wishers.”

“It was my pleasure, your Majesty, above my duty,” he answered as he straightened up again. “Besides, had I not remained with you, I would not have had the chance to give you this.”

He had produced a small item from his doublet, wrapped in black velvet, and her hands fluttered over to it, her excitement bubbling up into a smile. “I would never have taken you for such a deceiver.”

“I fear you will have read it already, many times,” Treville said, his own lips quirking at her amusement. “But I hope the presentation, at least, will please you.”

It was disappointment, strangely, that she felt first – for although the leather of the book’s binding was old, perhaps a hundred or two hundred years old, indeed, and richly-embossed in red and gold – the spine told her that the little volume, its thin pages stiff with age, was nothing more than a Book of Hours. Treville noticed the fall in her face and touched her fingers with his, opening the cover into her hand.

“Things are not always as they appear,” he murmured – and she could not suppress a gasp as she saw the title page, the rich press of the copper engraving, curlicues and cupids surrounding a valiant knight and his beautiful damsel, announcing the arrival of –

“Amadis,” she whispered. “ _Amadis of Gaul_. Oh, Captain, this must have cost you a fortune.”

“It would always have been worth it, your Majesty – for the sake of your companionship.”

He bowed again, withdrew two steps before she could speak again, and turned to leave, heavy cape swirling about his shoulders. The ladies behind her tittered with admiration, and Anne, speechless with the book in her hands, found herself wishing her husband was such a knight as this one.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know any of the titles/authors mentioned specifically except for _Amadis of Gaul_ (Wikipedia is my best friend). If there are any 17th-c French literature experts here, do feel free to chime in/correct me on stuff I might have gotten wrong! Most of the stuff I chose was published before 1620-1630, but a few from the 40s might have slipped through.


	10. In Goodly Colors Gloriously Arrayed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> CH. 10: a modern!AU fill for [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/1213.html?thread=1281213#cmt1281213): "So. Three guys living on their own and by all indications often struggling to make ends meet. I want them to have a division of labor arrangement where each does some day-to-day things for all three of them. Aramis mending their clothes and just generally making sure they look presentable. Porthos being able to make a good meal out of anything remotely edible. And I actually want Athos to be kind of a failboat at domestic skills at first, because remember he used to have a posh title and live in a posh house with two dozen servants, but eventually he figures something out and finds his niche." I hope you enjoy it, OP!

*

**I: June**

Aramis hadn’t taken to the garden immediately. It had struck him as a small, drab sort of place when they’d first moved in to the house and he and Porthos had been more preoccupied with running brooms into the ceiling corners to get rid of nests of cobwebs, scraping away chipped brown ( _brown_ ) paint and smoothing thick coats of white, pale blues, and an ever-so-delicate shade of golden yellow through their bedrooms, the kitchen, and living room. The little courtyard out back, with its half-broken shale pathways and an old iron-wrought table and chairs listing sadly in dry, hard-packed dirt, had been one of those things that They Might Get To At Some Point, But Really, It Wouldn’t Be Worth The Effort.

But then spring arrived, and then summer, and the light which spilled gloriously and determined over the brick walls into that drab little collection of weeds and creeping vines, despite the best efforts of the looming houses around them, made Aramis get up one morning and suddenly think yes, he would quite like to get happily filthy with a bag of potting soil at five-thirty in the morning, and _Don’t look at me like that, Athos, you’ll enjoy it when you get to drink outside too._

He came home from the local _pépinière_ with a brand-new wheelbarrow full of trowels, seed packets, pots and an extremely sturdy pair of white canvas gloves which prompted Porthos to giggle things about the local football team needing a new goalkeeper, and Athos to retreat to his bedroom complaining of over-exposure to bright colors. Clearing the underbrush, turning the earth, and fixing the paths and verges took the better part of a week of mornings; the planting, and making sure the old hose pipe dangling forlornly from a corner of the house worked, a few days more. It looked odd at first, he had to admit, when the three of them sat outside after he’d finished with a bottle of wine and a flickering fire torch to keep away mosquitos – too much blank earth, too much of nothing, no sign of whether the potential he’d planted was alive.

But then it all started to _grow_ , and Aramis found himself clucking and cooing over his charges like the proudest of mothers. The spearmint plant was a monster, tangling itself in wild rushes of vines across the ground as it greedily took in light, and dazing Aramis with a blast of heady scent if he so much as pinched one of its leaves. The pansies and marigolds he’d planted in the pots turned their heads lazily towards the sun. He scraped, oiled and re-painted the iron table and chairs in a handsome black lacquer, and Porthos began bringing their food out to him in the evenings, coaxing Athos out into the long-lasting summer evening with cool, fresh collections of fruit and fresh breads.

The afternoon when Porthos wandered out, rootled around in the vegetable patch and, with a ‘hmm’ of satisfaction, picked out a ripe courgette for his homemade tarte au chèvre was one of the most peaceful Aramis had ever felt.

*

**II: July**

Athos had been entirely useless when they’d moved in, and he hadn’t cared at all. He had thought it would be blindingly obvious that he may have been equipped for physical activity, but not for that sort of manual labor. This was not out of any sort of snobbery – it was just constitutionally beyond him, the idea that one would put so much effort into one’s environment, that one would _care_.

Then again, he hadn’t cared about much in those days when Porthos put his hands on his shoulders and Aramis physically held his hand to stop it shaking as he co-signed their lease. Divorce tended to do that to people (he hoped that was the case, at least, and that he was not an anomaly in that respect as well). So his contribution, he decided, would be a sturdy wine-rack for the wide counters in the kitchen, perfectly stocked for the benefit of drinkers and admirers alike; a glass cabinet for the living room in which one could keep an equally fine collection of harder spirits; and, of course, the sort of bottle-opener that not only would never split a cork, but would survive a nuclear blast. And that, he thought, as he took a few months to drift and wake up not knowing what day it was and realizing that Porthos and Aramis had apparently taken to showering him, as well as clothing him, while he slept, was that.

Or it would have been, until he stumbled downstairs one morning to find a rapidly-rising tidal wave of scummy water soaking into his socks, and when he sloshed into the kitchen he found the offending cabinet under the sink open, Porthos swearing and rummaging frantically through a very disreputable-looking toolbox, and Aramis sitting perched on the kitchen table, flapping like a bird that had been pushed out of its nest well before it was ready. Athos, doing what he believed was incredibly obvious, trudged downstairs to the basement and shut off the mains; when he returned upstairs it was to the sight of both of his housemates staring at him open-mouthed. “What?”

“You did a thing,” Aramis said vaguely.

Which was apparently how he became the house handyman, because he was the only one with any _fucking common sense_.

Over the next few months there were mice behind the skirting board that needed to be dealt with; lightbulbs to replace; taps to be tightened and pictures to be put up. And then, somehow, he started cleaning, and it became one of the most offensive things he could think of to see dishes left unstacked and unclean on the kitchen table too late at night; when he was hungover, curled into the squishiest armchair in the open living room and feeling like a single touch might shatter him like thrown glass, he would snarl out his displeasure at the sight of Porthos kicking off his shoes in the hallway and not stacking them neatly in the rack that had been provided.

The most spectacular incident was what made him realize that yes, indeed, he cared about the house, and yet cared far more for what and who was in it, and how they were fixing him. It was a warm morning in July, they were all off work, and Athos was far too sober as he and Porthos imbibed something mindless on the telly – Aramis was out in the garden and had been for hours, but then he came back inside with a tuft of squashy tuber-ish things in each hand, and cheerfully set them down on the countertop.

“They’re starting to come up nicely, aren’t they?” he started, but Athos was just staring (“Like a fucking beagle or hunter or something,” Porthos would cackle later) at the soil and traces of weeds that Aramis had trailed in behind him all over the floor, his clothes, the countertop, his bare feet.

“Um, mate,” Porthos said weakly, and Athos hadn’t realized he was growling, but oh, the look on Aramis’s face when he _launched_ himself off the couch and barreled them both back out of the door to roughhouse in the grass and deliver a lecture about cleanliness on pain of death was always going to be worth it.

*

**III: August**

Porthos had always liked his food. He liked the sudden realization of contentment he felt at the end of a long French meal as he swirled the dregs of his wine and reclined to give room to his satiated belly; he loved standing over pots and ovens and lifting lids or opening doors just a fraction to ostensibly check on progress, but actually just for getting the sensation of steam and flavor flooding his nostrils. He liked the feel of dough and short crust – always made with full butter, the substitutes made him ill with confused disgust – under his hands, the way he could _make_ something rather than breaking it. And he knew, when he was self-aware enough to think about it, that he had the personality for cooking, too – that he was exactly the right sort of person to make friends with the men and women who worked in their local open-air market on Thursdays, charming the old birds who sold tightly-closed mussels and the gap-toothed men who gave him the best cuts of butcher’s meat with a wink and a grin.

He’d started with the heavy foods first, the sort of thing he liked to eat for energy and power and taste bud-exploding spice. Daube, bouillabaisse and ratatouille took ages, but always rewarded; bourguignon, cassoulet, and coq au vin left him heavy with sleep and knowing he wouldn’t need breakfast. His first attempts at his own croissants were disappointments, but when he got the hang of it he loved the way he figured out how to make his dark chocolate suffuse its way through the pastry for pain au chocolat, and the filthy noise that Aramis always made when he snuck into the kitchen and, plucking a fresh one off of Porthos’s tray, stuffed it into his mouth, getting dabs of sweetness caught in his stubble.

He became so well known for his heartiness, in fact – d’Artagnan, the new boy in their particular division of the Sûreté, and his off-and-on girlfriend, Constance, had started showing up on a regular basis to help out with actually polishing off the massive dishes and deal with their leftovers situation – that when he tried something different, he was unexpectedly nervous about it. He left the little pile of macarons on the coffee table subtly, he thought, in the middle of a spirited conversation about _Les Bleus_ and how they clearly didn’t have a hope in hell at the World Cup because it was Les Bleus, and they were French, and that was all that needed to be said, and kept his face carefully neutral as Constance cooed with delight and, setting her espresso aside, reached for one of the little biscuits.

d’Artagnan blinked around a mouthful of his. “Wow. That’s bloody amazing.”

“It tastes like a mint _plant_ ,” Constance said happily, nibbling away little pieces of hers. “I can smell dirt and everything. Where’d you get these?”

“From the garden,” Athos said wryly to one side, and Porthos turned to see him with a glass of wine in one hand and a half-eaten macaron in the other, smirking at Porthos like he was a complete idiot, and a traitor, for attempting to pass them off as anything but his own. “You used Aramis’s mint, didn’t you?”

“Yeah,” Porthos said, and grinned. Aramis got down onto his hands and knees, then, and commenced what was actually a very amusing routine of bowing and scraping at Porthos’s feet while sneaking several more macarons off of the plate they’d been served on, and Constance laughed so hard she spilled wine all over d’Artagnan. And Porthos, face warm and sternum tight with pride, congratulated himself and his hands on something he’d never thoughts himself capable of: delicacy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Spenser's _Amoretti_ , Sonnet 70.
> 
> FRESH spring the herald of loues mighty king,  
>  In whose cote armour richly are displayd,  
>  all sorts of flowers the which on earth do spring  
>  in goodly colours gloriously arrayd.  
> Goe to my loue, where she is carelesse layd,  
>  yet in her winters bowre not well awake:  
>  tell her the ioyous time wil not be staid  
>  vnlesse she doe him by the forelock take.  
> Bid her therefore her selfe soone ready make,  
>  to wayt on loue amongst his louely crew:  
>  where euery one, that misseth then her make,  
>  shall be by him amearst with penance dew.  
> Make hast therefore sweet loue, whilest it is prime,  
>  for none can call againe the passed time.


	11. Then By That Count, Which Lovers' Books Invent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A certain provincial Count finds himself with an unexpected and undesired guest on his hands: a trespasser who claims to be nobility. Such nonsense cannot be countenanced.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve haven’t posted for two weeks? Shit! I haven’t posted for two weeks! Sorry all, RL has been a real bitch of late (and apologies to those on Tumblr who have had to put up with my constant moaning about it). And this isn’t quite a kink prompt fill either: I basically took a gander at all of the Athos-as-Comte prompts on the meme and then combined the general idea of them with a request from the lovely [tealoaves](http://tealoaves.tumblr.com/) for general Comte badassery. And lo, there resulted a thousand and a bit words of third-person observance Athos whump. Hope you enjoy it!

*

The prisoner sits very still in the Comte’s chair, upright and stiff with what the Comte assumes must be fear. What was once a fine shirt and a heavy, velvet coat is now muddy and torn; the bloody wound in his side has been left untreated by the Comte’s men, and threatens to ruin the embroidered silks he sits upon, but in his anger the Comte has ceased to care about the state of his furniture.

“You expect me to believe,” he says, puffing himself up to what he knows is his fullest and impressive height, “that _you_ are of noble stock? A common vagabond, disguising himself and his fetid companions in order to trespass across my lands?”

“I do not dispute the trespass, sir,” the prisoner says calmly. His pale hands grip the arms of the chair, and his hair is matted with dirt from the fall from his horse into the Comte’s lower woods. “Nor am I lying. The Comte de la Fère begs your leave, and your help.”

He cuts a fine figure in his demeanor and mien, the Comte will give him that; but the idea that a man found riding with impunity across the Comte’s domains in the company of what, by all his own men’s accounts, was a pack of extremely scruffy ruffians indeed, and in the face of not only a ridiculous claim to nobility but a highly unlikely story of urgent business on the King’s behalf, the Comte feels not at all inclined to believe what he is hearing.

He gestures to one of his men – the one who claimed the shot which brought this man down, and who is visibly very proud of himself – and the villein steps eagerly up to the Comte, presses a scuffed and embossed pauldron into his hand which he then drops into the false Comte’s lap. “One of your fellow thieves claims to be a Musketeer, by the looks of this. Musketeers ride in no one’s service but the king’s, and you, sir, are not he.”

“Indeed. I am but one of his servants.”

The Comte turns away in disgust, unwilling to converse any longer with what is clearly a criminal with delusions of grandeur. “You shall stay here, _sir_ , until you decide you are more amenable to answering my questions.”

“My men,” the prisoner says sharply, and the Comte turns back in the doorway, nettled at the command implicit in his voice. “Where are they?”

“The rascals escaped. More’s the pity.”

“I should warn you, sir,” his guest says, and there is suddenly something low and dangerous in his voice, and the sort of feeling that usually only occurs to the Comte when he is at court and catches the eye of king or cardinal sparks in his spine. “My companions are not the abandoning kind, nor is our task at hand completed. I would ask you, for your own sake, to let me go.”

“Be silent,” the Comte commands, and takes some measure of satisfaction in seeing his words obeyed, though, he senses, that that is perhaps due more to the prisoner having nothing further to say than to any respect for his position. “We shall waste no more time on your ravings. Jacques – remain here. I want the rest of you out making sure that these bandits do not return.”

The rest of the day passes quietly, with no word of further disturbances, and, with his family thankfully far to the south making a tour of his outer _region_ , the Comte finishes his dictations and completes the weekly books with his steward in good enough time that he decides it would be worthwhile to check on his prisoner once more before he retires. It is a very good thing, indeed, he reflects as he walks to the _petit salon_ , that his sons were not here to indulge their curiosity for a glimpse of a Real Bandit. And it is a _very_ good thing indeed that his wife and head housekeeper are traveling together and are thus unable to see what has become of the brand-new fabric covering of their best chairs.

The prisoner has slumped by this point, and struggles quietly for breath; Jacques sits snoring across the room, a loaded pistol on his lap, as the Comte shuts the door and settles himself primly in a chair across from the pretender.

“I could have that seen to, if you would but tell me the truth,” the Comte sighs, consciously taking on the air of a man whose honor has been cut to the quick as he gestures at the prisoner’s wound; it has spread blood all down his side and dripped past him to the parquet floor, which will now of course have to be re-waxed.

It appears to take the false Comte a great effort to lift his head. “What I told you earlier has not changed, sir. I am Athos, lately Comte de la Fère; I am an agent of His Majesty, and if I trespassed on your estates it was but in aid of expediency. My business is urgent.”

The Comte looks him over in the dimming light of the late summer evening. Whatever ruse it is he and his companions were involved in, they went to some amount of trouble to construct it, at least. The _habillement_ of the man sitting before him is worthy of his assumed rank, to be sure, and is finely worked in every detail; they had gone to great trouble, he imagines, to steal the heavy signet ring that lies on the fourth finger of the bloodless left hand.

“I confess myself bewildered, sir, as to this charade,” he says. “If you were inclined to describe your business I might be persuaded as to your purpose.”

“Ah,” the prisoner replies, and a ghost of a smile rises into his broad face. “But such indiscretion would hardly befit a Comte, my lord. Surely you can understand that, at least.”

“Do not presume to speak to me as an equal,” the Comte barks, and in the corner, Jacques startles and snuffles in his sleep. “I am completely within my rights to hang you for your crime.”

“Then know that you would be executing a son of one of the oldest families in Normandy, sir,” the prisoner replies, and the Comte recognizes with fury the same sort of haute disdain that he himself so often uses at court in the man’s voice, as though it is the _Comte_ who has betrayed his upbringing with his behavior. “And you would answer for it.”

“Why, you – ”

He rises to strike the impudence from the man’s face, but before he has finished raising his hand there is a low growl of rage rising suddenly behind him, where the door should have been closed, and he turns to see Jacques scrabbling out of his chair and dropping his pistol in panic at the sight of three blue-caped Musketeers who have appeared in the doorway, each of them bristling with weapons and thunderous expressions.

“What is the meaning of this?” the Comte cries, flabbergasted, but he is not given any answer as one of the soldiers pushes past him and kneels at the side of the prisoner, probing quickly at his wound with delicately gloved hands.

“My lord. Are you badly hurt?”

The Comte’s world shifts.

“Badly enough, Chevalier,” the prisoner – the other Comte – groans as he grits his teeth against the musketeer’s ministrations. “But nothing your fine stitching won’t help.”

“Fine enough for the Queen’s chemise,” the musketeer says under his breath, and De la Fère laughs, sudden and bright.

“Sir,” comes another snarl from the doorway, and the Comte turns to see another of the musketeers, this one enormous and bursting with muscled menace, pointing a pistol straight at his face. “Step away. If you or any of your men try to stop us, we will not hesitate to kill you.”

Seeing as Jacques is currently cowering under the eye of the third musketeer, who looks like nothing more than a stripling boy, the Comte is sure that neither he nor his so-called men would or could offer any resistance. But he splutters at the indignity nonetheless, because damn it, this is his chateau, and he will _not_ be spoken to like this on account of a genuine misunderstanding.

“I may have been in error but I demand an explanation – ”

“And you will get one, sir,” De la Fère says from behind him, and the Comte turns back to see the other nobleman upright and firmly in the grasp of the first musketeer, his unwounded arm over the soldier’s shoulders. “But I’m afraid you will have to wait for it. We have an appointment to make with his Majesty, on the matter of a certain treaty with Spain.”

He has the audacity to bow his head to the Comte, and straightens again with a smirk that sets the Comte’s teeth on edge. “I thank you for your hospitality; though it leaves something to be desired, I think.”

The youngest musketeer’s sniggers of laughter accompany the four men out. Jacques looks uncertainly at the Comte as soon as they are gone, and begins to cower again at the fury in the Comte’s face. “My lord?”

The Comte throws up his hands. “Par _dieu_ ,” he blares. “Send for my draper. If we don’t get this chair re-covered before my wife returns home…”

*


	12. In Defiance of All Enemies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CH 12, filling [this prompt:](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=996358#cmt996358) Because I'm a sucker for suffering-Athos and his man angst. We've seen in the series that no matter what happens to the boys or what they're accused of, they stand by each other absolutely and never doubt each other. This was not always the case, when Athos joined the regiment, Aramis and Porthos weren't particularly impressed with him; he doesn't have much to say and he drinks too much. When a mission goes wrong (perhaps someone gets hurt) they mistakenly believe Athos is responsible and beat him seven ways from Sunday. Not once does he protest his innocence or raise a hand to defend himself, he just takes every punch and kick until he's a bleeding crumpled mess at their feet. He considers it part of his penance for failing to save Thomas. Cue a horrified Porthos and Aramis finding out they've made a mistake. They vow to help Athos to recover and in doing so, find out what made him the way he is. A friendship is born.”
> 
> It’s not an exact fill (I didn’t really keep the Thomas angle, and added a Savoy tilt), but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless, OP! **Featuring art by[JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn).**

*

[](http://i.imgur.com/LotWzyt.jpg)  
"Pursuing Apologies" by [JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn). Click for full-size.

*

In the weeks after Savoy, Aramis finds himself unsettled by the smallest and, in hindsight, most natural of things.

The winter sun pains his eyes; the clash of blade on blade in the garrison courtyard as subdued musketeers spar, knowing suddenly how lucky they are, grates in his ears. He despises how the other men, most his junior, look at him without looking, and refuse to meet his gaze; he hates the concern in the deep lines of grief that have appeared on Treville’s face. (It is only Porthos, only the continuous sensation of broad, dark hands lifting him powerfully upwards out of a snowdrift, which settles him – only the presence of trust, and friendship that demands nothing of him, which lets him continue the daily struggle of leaving his apartments.)

It is no wonder, therefore, that the stranger irritates him so. It is a comfort to know that Porthos does not trust him, either – does not trust the brooding good looks which have been left too long unkempt, nor the weapons aged by both service and genealogy; does not understand, nor condone, the new musketeer’s habit of drinking openly in front of the rest of them, not just to be sociable but to excess. In his grasping search for normality, Aramis cannot accept Athos’s silence, his blunt manners, his Otherness, his inability to be included – this is in no part his fault, but Aramis has ceased to think rationally about blame and responsibility in most things – in their collective misery.

It is Treville’s inclination to instantly give Athos the command of others, however, which rankles most, and turns what might have been just an indifference on Aramis’s part into a sharp, pointed dislike. He bristles, as does Porthos, when Athos leads them out of the garrison arch as though it is part of an estate he owns; he doesn’t care for the way Athos displays no reverence, even at the start, for the state of his deep blue cloak, leaving it to be spattered with mud during patrols, or casually folded over his arm at the end of a long day – the general suspicion that he bought his commission does him no favors. While neither Aramis nor Porthos would begrudge him his skill with a blade (for it is astonishing and dumb-founding, the sight of him fighting when he is sober), they chafe underneath the authority they have not yet seen earned; Aramis determines, on the day when they first return from patrol under his watchful gaze, that it is time, now, for him to reclaim his place.

And then, a few weeks later, Athos returns to the garrison hatless, disheveled and with blood on his hands; he drives a rented cart on which lies the body of the young musketeer (Pierre, a mere boy from Picardy, son of a minor Viscount) whom he had been patrolling with, and Aramis feels all of his breath leave him in a rush.

He grabs Athos’s shoulder as he half-falls off of the cart, turns him, shakes him once, hard. “What happened?”

Athos is, however, as inscrutable as ever, and he only pulls himself out of Aramis’s grip, hand firm if pale on the hilt of his sword. “I will report to Treville,” he says, and staggers towards the stairs.

“He’s drunk,” Aramis breathes, in amazement, as soon as Athos is far away enough to hear him, and he feels Porthos’s hand on his back, steadying him, as the men who have gathered around them start to mutter amongst themselves, sorrow ebbing and anger building, and Serge hobbles towards the cart, pain written across his face as he prepares to take the body indoors and call for the undertaker. (He has had to do this duty, commit this final act of care, too many times of late.)

Porthos guides Aramis inside the barracks, sits him down at the door of the armory, murder blazoned dark across his face. “What should we do?” he rumbles. “Tell Treville? Surely he’d notice.”

Aramis reaches sideways, feels the smooth metal and rope wick of an arquebus comfortingly against his palm; Porthos follows his movement with his eyes, and his expression settles into a grim determination, only briefly tinged with doubt. He nods.

The rumors fly thick and fast in the courtyard during the hour Athos spends in Treville’s office. From what various musketeers on patrol glean from street rats and those who will speak for coin, opinion is divided between an attack by Red Guards, pickpocketing thieves, or worse being responsible for Pierre’s death. Some say Athos was outnumbered, some say he was too far away from Pierre on the street when he was struck down; when pressed, one or two say they thought it was unusual for a King’s Musketeer to be so hapless. Whatever the truth, Aramis is conscious of having made up his mind, and he clings to his certainty, for later, he knows, he will need it to remind himself that what they will do is necessary for the good of the regiment.

Athos cuts an exhausted figure when, at length, he emerges, and the nighttime conversation of the watch instantly dies down. He looks at no one before he starts trudging out towards the street; it is simple, therefore, for Aramis and Porthos to follow him, breathing light and thin, itching for they know not what. It is easy to call out to Athos as though in greeting, halfway down a narrow and badly-cobbled street, to see him turn, and strike the first blow – the butt of Aramis’s arquebus rising and cracking into his jaw, dropping him like a stone to the filthy street.

“Careful, Aramis,” Porthos growls, leaning down, clenched hands at the ready. “Wouldn’t want the Captain to see a bruise on his favorite’s pretty face, would we?”

He drives a fist into Athos’s stomach, provoking a jerk and a groan; after that, it progresses quickly to its end, Aramis’s toes aching within his heavy boots and cracks splintering his gun, and when Porthos stands, flexing his knuckles, Aramis, for the first time, feels a thrill of fear (entirely for himself) at the thought that he himself has turned fratricidal.

But no; Athos turns onto his side, retches, and blood spatters onto the cobbles, one arm clenched across his stomach as he curls in on himself. “I didn’t expect it to be you,” he mumbles into his elbow.

“Oh?” Aramis says, his voice sounding far away, and thin. “Have no fear – we are always at the ready to protect our brothers against those who would fail them.”

“Or punish them,” Porthos snarls, “after the fact.”

They leave him lying there, return to the garrison, and do not sleep.

The next day, at noon, Treville calls them in to see him, and they find him distracted in his paperwork, ink spilled in a dark pool beside his desk that has been badly cleaned up. “Where is Athos? He was supposed to report in this morning.”

There it is, for the first time: a stab of sickening satisfaction, of smugness, deep in Aramis’s gut which makes him think that it might have been worthwhile. “We have no idea, sir. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were drunk somewhere, as he usually is.”

He does not expect the swift contraction of Treville’s brows inward, the impatience he has not displayed with Aramis since before Savoy. “You will both go to check on him at his rooms in the Rue Ferou,” he says sharply. “He was carrying an injury from the ambush yesterday – I would not have him fall ill with infection.”

Something in Aramis’s perception lurches sideways, leaves him feeling dizzy and unmoored. “Ambush,” he says tonelessly, and Treville looks harder at him, clearly annoyed.

“I see the truth of it has not made the rounds. I would have thought that the Red Guards would have been crowing about it all over Paris; then again, a group of ten losing five of their number to one injured man, and killing only one in return, is hardly a feat worthy of boasting.”

He looks between Aramis and Porthos, and waves an irritated hand towards the door. “Do I have to repeat myself?”

Aramis leaves first, and leans heavily against the bannister as Porthos joins him; Porthos, who has shrunk a few inches in his clothes, and refuses to look at Aramis just as he can hardly bear to beg for forgiveness. “Porthos, I – ”

“Save it,” Porthos says briskly, and shudders, his head sinking low. “C’mon, we gotta – gotta go find him.”

The Rue Ferou is quiet even in the bustle of morning on a market day, and it is little trouble to find themselves directed to the small courtyard onto which Athos’s rooms look. For a long while, they worry that their sins are irrevocable, as several knocks yield no answer; but then, as Porthos stretches in preparation to knock down the battered door, the key turns in the lock, and Athos’s pale face looks out at them.

“Come for more?” he says vaguely; his gaze is unfocused, and Aramis can smell wine on his breath. Seeing the patchwork of bruises beneath his collarbone and shadowed darkly through his shirt, however, Aramis cannot begrudge him this meagre medication. “I’d be grateful if you let Captain Treville know that I will be unfit for duty for some time, at least. I would tell him myself, but – ”

“Oh, let us in, you idiot,” Porthos bursts out, and he bundles Athos back inside with a strong grip on Athos’s elbows, shoving him down to sit on his rumpled bed. “Why the _hell_ didn’ you tell us what happened?”

Athos smirks darkly; his dry lips crack, and a drop of blood wells up. “You did not seem inclined to listen.”

“You don’ tell us _anything_ ,” Porthos protests half-heartedly, and then falls silent, looking miserably down at the floor, and Aramis feels his guilt press upon him harder than ever.

“Should I have?” Athos asks mildly, and Aramis sees that he is looking at Porthos with something of a quiet wonderment, as though bewildered that this man, this towering creature, could care about the welfare of someone such as him.

It is a sentiment Aramis has felt time and time again since Savoy, and one which he believes in utterly. And so, faced, finally, with this proof of sound judgment and agreement between himself and Athos, he takes a deep breath, and, as humbly as he can manage, crosses silently over to the bed and asks Athos to raise his arms, so he can examine his wounds.

After a long, calculating look, Athos acquiesces, just as humbly; and as he sets to work fixing what he had broken, Aramis, unexpectedly, feels hope.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kind of a perfect Spenser fit for this one, _Amoretti_ Sonnet 5:
> 
> RVDELY thou wrongest my deare harts desire,  
> In finding fault with her too portly pride:  
> the thing which I doo most in her admire,  
> is of the world vnworthy most enuide.  
> For in those lofty lookes is close implide,  
> scorn of base things, & sdeigne of foule dishonor:  
> thretning rash eies which gaze on her so wide,  
> that loosely they ne dare to looke vpon her.  
> Such pride is praise, such portlinesse is honor,  
> that boldned innocence beares in her eies:  
> and her faire countenance like a goodly banner,  
> spreds in defiaunce of all enemies.  
> Was neuer in this world ought worthy tride,  
> without some spark of such self-pleasing pride.


	13. That All My Wounds Will Heal in Timely Space

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CH. 13, filling [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=1090310#cmt1090310): "Athos craves punishment as penance for letting his brother die and tries to get it by any means necessary. Treville finds him hurt after taking some absurd risk and when he goes to read him the riot act, Athos confesses that the only way he can function is to feel that he is being punished. Treville offers him a deal; he can come to him any time he wants to be punished and the Captain will do it on two conditions: that Athos stop taking risks and that he accepts his care after each punishment. Athos gladly accepts. (would prefer the punishments to be totally non-sexual please and thank you)"
> 
> This chapter featuring art by [JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn)!

[  
](http://i.imgur.com/jNLOkXX.jpg)"Amelioration" by [JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn). Click for full-size.

*

It takes just over a year for Treville to realize that Athos wishes to die.

He is no stranger to the danger presented by the streets of Paris, but a man with such skill as the one he raised up from his drink in the Rue Ferou should never have gotten himself into as much danger as Athos had, even as a new recruit; should never, with the years of soldiering behind him that Treville was certain he had, thrown himself as calmly and faux-recklessly into as many battles he did not need to wage on his own. Treville cares not for the reasons behind Athos’s folly; he is a commander, and one who knows the value of the men he must, under any circumstances, keep close to him, and so he waits, and studies the self-destruction, and measures what he would do to ensure that he doesn’t lose his man.

Promoting Athos to be his lieutenant in 1628, three years into his service, does little more than to ensure Athos accepts even more responsibility for his idiocy, and transfers more and more worship that he never wanted onto his shoulders from the other musketeers; Treville is no fool to realize that it only does the regiment credit for the men to look up to someone, especially his most trusted agent, but the difficulty of Porthos and Aramis’s growing attachment (he finds himself using the term ‘Inseparables’ in court company, once, and surprises himself with his depth of feeling for it) makes it imperative, when Athos returns limping to the garrison on yet another occasion and reports to him with blood sliding down the side of his neck, that he do something.

“What is it that you want?” he says, after Porthos and Aramis have left, and Athos pauses halfway out the door, making no mistake of Treville’s meaning.

“I have much to atone for,” he says, simply, and leaves Treville alone to ponder whether he is, indeed, worth the trouble he is about to undergo.

He calls Athos into his office a week later, late into the evening, and orders him to stand at attention in front of the desk. Athos waits silently, hat in hand, not yet curious; it is only when Treville stands, removes his coat, and begins to roll up his sleeves that trepidation seeps into his expression.

Treville takes Athos’s chin in his hand, regards him no more personally than he would a lame horse down in the garrison’s stables. “You understand my disapproval of your actions?” he asks.

“Of course,” Athos answers instantly.

“Will you take steps to correct them?”

Athos’s gaze drops, down and off to one side. “I will not,” he says, sadly, as though he answers to a higher power that he could never name.

“Do you trust me, then, to do so?”

Athos’s shoulders fall, suddenly, and his body sags into Treville’s grasp, as though he has been waiting years for someone to ask this of him. Treville lets go of him, waits until he has steadied himself on his feet, and then, without speaking, lifts his hand and sends it cracking across Athos’s cheek.

And so it continues, for months, then a year, then longer; there is no regularity to the symptoms, nor the treatment, and so Treville never sinks into the dangerous apathy of thinking that what he is doing has become rote or unimportant (it is neither, for Athos’s propensity to seek out danger lessens markedly, and that is all that he has wished for). If he is to strike Athos’s face, he does it with open palms and a loose, glancing strength in his arms, so that the mark will redden angrily, but never sink deep enough to bruise. He dares not adopt the discipline of the schoolmaster, ordering Athos out to cut his own switch, both for the sake of discretion and both of their dignities; he has always kept a birch cane hidden away in his office to deal with the more personally embarrassing of his recruits’ mistakes, and it is this he turns to, keeping his strokes consistent and even, until they are breathing together as he layers stripes across Athos’s lower back, not so hard as to bleed through bandages and shirt, nor so low as to cause him enough pain that he could not ride.

It is a long, slow surrender, most nights, not a moment of desperation about it; his lieutenant will remain silent, growing limp into the floor or against the edge of his desk, until they both begin to soften like rubber and sink into motionlessness. It is then, once Athos has slumped and rests at peace, sweat shining along his collarbones, that Treville enacts his only condition: he lifts them both up, brings Athos, unresisting and passive, into the small bedchamber off of his office, strips him, rubs clean cloth along his limbs and face, paints the lines of whipmarks with a finger cold with salve. Athos sleeps, face-down and dead to the world, and Treville leaves him there; when he returns the next morning the bed is empty and the sheets are folded, the window open to the fresh morning air.

When his men come back from Le Havre in no little disgrace, having let Bonnaire slip through their fingers (the Cardinal saw fit to visit Treville in person to make clear his private wrath, and Treville feels not at all charitable towards their return), he has no reason to suspect any difference in Athos when his man knocks and enters at his growl, late in the evening. He brings with him the very faint smell of stale smoke in his leathers, and the far stronger scent of sour wine; Treville takes a moment to finish signing and sealing a letter, and when he looks up, pauses at the sight of Athos kneeling in his shirtsleeves with his hands lying palms-down on his thighs, head bent low, in the middle of the floor.

“The knife,” Athos says, quietly. “Please.”

Treville waits a few minutes, as the room starts to grow dark, to see if the request will be rescinded or modified; it is not, and eventually he stands and pulls his _main gauche_ from its sheath in his desk drawer. He has done this but once before – it had been midsummer, when the heavy heat and long light of the evenings seemed to have driven Athos to distraction – and Treville finds himself unsettled, not by what he is about to do, but by the forced uncertainty of his motives.

He threads his hand into Athos’s hair, pushes his forehead back with his palm, raises the main gauche until the blade is lying flat against the adam’s apple. “Hold,” he murmurs, and Athos does, eyes closed and breath slowly leaking out of him.

It is not enough, not yet; his chest hitches, and Treville is careful to keep his wrist loose, making sure the metal has room to slip without causing harm.

“Porthos nearly died this week,” Athos whispers, conversationally, his eyes restless beneath their lids. “As did I.”

This last comes out reluctantly, and Treville’s grip on the hilt of the main gauche tightens. He has seen Porthos’s shoulder, and how well it was eventually tended to; he has heard nothing of what the rest implies, and can sense no injury, no stiffness in the way Athos holds himself that would indicate a wound. But he knows all too well that sensation of impending death, whether on a battlefield or a street skirmish, or on a lonely road far from home, waiting for the zip of a bullet or the soft slip of leather against iron as a sword is unsheathed behind one’s back, and wondering whether, in the end, there was so much worth staying alive for; the curiosity of what awaited as one bled their life away, looking up at the sky.

“Would you care,” Treville murmurs, keeping his muscles in that calm relaxation that would not be disturbed by noise nor interruption, “if my hand were to slip? Do not answer for the sake of others.”

 _Not even mine_ , he thinks.

He is asking, however, for his own sake; his selfishness pushes at the edges of his thought even as Athos stops breathing.

“Yes,” Athos murmurs; he learns into the touch of the knife, presses forward until the skin of his neck starts to turn white. “Yes, I would care, God help me.”

He is visibly spent, suddenly, and Treville steps back, puts away the blade, turns back to find Athos pulling himself shakily to his feet, seeking out his doublet from the back of the chair by the doorway with trembling hands.

“Stay here,” Treville says, and, just like every other night, grabs Athos by the elbow, pulls him towards the antechamber. “You need rest.”

He is ready to make it an order, but it turns out there is no need for it; Athos falls onto the side of the bed, pulls off his boots, and only looks up once he is suitably undressed enough not to soil his captain’s sheets with the dirt of the Le Havre road.

“ _Merci_ ,” he murmurs, and Treville leans down, presses rough lips to a cold temple, offering what blessing and comfort the king’s war leader can manage.

“Sleep,” he says, and closes the door gently behind him. He pulls the birch cane out from behind his armoire, and takes it with him as he puts on his hat, buttons his coat, and sets out into the streets past his yawning men. He resolves first to break it over his knee, then to simply discard it in the nearest gutter; by the time he reaches his hotel he has slowed to barely an ambling pace, and it is still tucked under his arm.

He takes it inside with him, finally, thinking that perhaps, if he is observant enough – and Treville knows he is – Athos will realize where it has gone, and where to find it. His sleep is dreamless, and deep.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spenser’s _Amoretti,_ Sonnet 55:
> 
> SWEET warriour when shall I haue peace with you?  
>  High time it is, this warre now ended were:  
>  which I no lenger can endure to sue,  
>  ne your incessant battry more to beare:  
> So weake my powres, so sore my wounds appeare,  
>  that wonder is how I should liue a iot,  
>  seeing my hart through launched euery where  
>  with thousand arrowes, which your eies haue shot:  
> Yet shoot ye sharpely still, and spare me not,  
>  but glory thinke to make these cruel stoures.  
>  ye cruell one, what glory can be got,  
>  in slaying him that would liue gladly yours?  
> Make peace therefore, and graunt me timely grace:  
>  that al my wounds will heale in little space.


	14. Of All Alive Most Worthy To Be Praised

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CH. 13, filling [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=592134#cmt592134): "Porthos constantly pays Athos compliments: partly because they're all true, and partly to see him fall apart. Because we all know that Athos cannot take a compliment at all."
> 
> Otherwise known as: Four times Athos couldn’t handle Porthos’s compliments, and one time he accepted them – and acted on them. Featuring art by [JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn)!

*

[  
](http://i.imgur.com/iYL0KZB.jpg)Illustration by [JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn). Click for full-size.

*

**I.**

It starts simply, as such things are wont to do.

In his first weeks at the garrison, Athos does little besides guard duty, and, to Porthos’s eyes, doesn’t seem much good for anything else, either. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t spar, walks when others run, and does not eat; there is nothing, therefore, that Porthos can possibly think of to say to him, and even his normal compunction to befriend, especially those in need of help (and if there’s ever a man who needs it it’s clear Athos does), is stymied.

It is more than a little bit of a surprise, therefore, when he returns to the garrison with Aramis (who himself is only starting to blossom outwards again under Porthos’s care, four months after Savoy) one evening after a long day of drudgery at the palace to the sound of roaring laughter and encouragement that suggests a lot of money is at stake, and sees Athos surrounded by grinning, bellowing men at the table, halfway through a drinking competition with Cornet and clearly winning.

He and Aramis stop to watch and are soon caught up in the theater of it, as Cornet begins to sway after the fourth bottle and Athos sits motionless in his shirtsleeves, elbows on the table and gaze unflinching even as hands rain down on his shoulders with the successful disappearance of each cup. Just past midnight, with the boisterousness reaching a fever pitch, Cornet, who has battled valiantly, slips sideways and snores his way into the mud and straw of the courtyard, and cheers burst out as Athos is hoisted onto his feet and _livres_ rapidly change hands.

“Look at you,” Porthos says admiringly, as he and Aramis finally work their way through the crowd and he gets close enough to clasp a hand to the back of Athos’s neck. “You old ironguts!”

The flush of startled satisfaction which spreads faintly along the skin under his thumb is unexpected, but it’s a start – and it begins to give him ideas.

 

**II.**

The next compliment he pays is easy, because he’s quite sure that most of the garrison, and perhaps most of Paris, has never seen swordsmanship the likes of which Athos treats them to when Treville finally becomes impatient and insists that he train with the others. Aramis goes flying head over heel; the more confident charge in too quickly and find Athos spinning inside their grip to press his _main gauche_ against their breastbone within a few steps; even the more skilled among them barely last a minute, and Athos stands imperious and wary, eyes shifting between them as they grumble and retreat, so clearly unapologetic for his talent that it makes Porthos’s chest puff outwards with pride.

He takes his turn, plays to his strengths and tries to overwhelm with brute force; he is by far the stronger, but Athos remains slippery as an eel, and soon disarms him with a flick of the wrist and, if they had been in a real duel, Porthos knows that the sword across his neck and the main gauche pressed hard against his midriff would stop him.

But this is not a real duel, so he steps into Athos, grins, says “That was fucking brilliant,” and watches Athos’s grip on his blades loosen. Athos is the one to step away this time, visibly flustered, and Porthos slings an arm over his shoulders, laughing, and says he’ll buy that night’s drinks.

 

**III.**

Porthos loves his horses, but is the first to admit that he sees them more as beasts and friends of burden rather that objects of beauty. He was not raised in a world which admitted them as anything else, and so to watch the horses at court being put through their paces in front of Louis for reasons of display or amusement is always a source of eager fascination.

It is genuinely flabbergasting to him, though he probably should have realized that it lies in congress with what is implied by Athos’s voice and bearing, that his newfound comrade can take a horse through an elegant piaffe, passage, and pirouette with the very best of the King’s courtiers. Louis himself is delighted to the point of clapping his hands when Treville offers a champion to take on the best of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber, and Athos outperforms him handsomely; when Athos returns to Porthos and Aramis’s side the horse is blowing and sweating, and there is a rare smile on Athos’s face as beside Porthos, Aramis sniggers and mutters something about smug bastards under his breath.

“How did y’bloody do that?” Porthos gapes; Athos dismounts and pats the horse’s neck, still oblivious.

“He shows promise. I shall ask Serge if I may keep him. Roger, I believe it was.”

“Fucking amazing,” Porthos says, putting all of his warmth into it, and Athos turns his head to look at him only briefly before he ducks away again, murmuring something about being easily pleased, but he cannot hide that same blush of embarrassed pleasure.

 

**IV.**

It is clearly time for Porthos to press his advantage, so when, a month later, they are training in the courtyard and Porthos has been taking all comers for an hour, it seems a perfect opportunity to get his own back; and he does, because even with his speed Athos cannot outtwist or outfight him, and it is a most amusing and wonderful moment when Porthos slams him down into the dirt and, putting his knee firmly in the middle of Athos’s chest, starts to give him a whispered lecture on the merits of self-esteem.

“Porthos,” Athos manages to wheeze just as Porthos has finished telling him how good he is at everything, his face beet-red with (maybe) exertion. “Let me up.”

“Not finished yet,” Porthos says cheerfully. “I haven’t told you how handsome you are.”

Something like a growl escapes Athos’s throat, and he pushes mightily at Porthos’s knee, but to no avail. It takes another thirty seconds of prattle, mostly to do with filthy puns on the subject of swordsmanship, before he gives in, flopping spread-eagled into the mud and closing his eyes with defeat, a shiver of what Porthos dearly hopes is laughter echoing through his chest.

“There,” Porthos chirps, and jumps to his feet, reaching down a hand to grab Athos’s and pull him up. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“No,” Athos says wryly, straw in his hair and his shirt and practice doublet plastered to his skin; he looks at Porthos with something somehow more than fondness as the color starts to fade from his cheeks. “It was not.”

*

 

**I.**

They are both too angry, stuck in that sweltering ballroom with the Duke of Savoy angrily stalking from the room, to have played games with that familiar sensation of Porthos’s hand on Athos’s sweaty neck, the whispered, fierce compliment all they can allow themselves for the moment. Porthos waits pacing in the corridor as Athos makes his grudging apology; his thoughts race at the sight of the scar, and his mind is busy, all too busy, with the desire to watch Athos to deal out humiliation again and this time, not stop at threats.

“Did you hear all that?” Athos is still angry and taut when he emerges, and but for his long stride Porthos would find it difficult to keep up with him as they make their way back through the palace.

“Marsac was right about the scar.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s right about Treville,” Athos snaps, and they walk in silence for a few moments before the adrenaline begins to fade and their pace naturally slows. Athos stops before the doorway leading back into the reception chamber and wipes futilely at the sweat on his brow, clearly reluctant to re-emerge under the King and Treville’s gazes.

“Bloody well done, that,” Porthos says quietly, patting Athos briefly on the shoulder. “I wasn’ lying before. I would’ve killed ‘im. What you did was – better. Much better.”

“I knew you’d think so,” Athos replies, a corner of his lip quirking. He looks up at Porthos, then, and there is heat in his gaze. “Like a confident man, don’t you?”

“Well, ye – ”

Athos’s mouth stops him before he gets the word out, shoving back and upwards into Porthos until they are pressed flush against the door, and Porthos’s head lurches strangely. Athos breaks the kiss, eventually, draws back a fraction, and, heavy-lidded, smirks.

“Compliment _that_ ,” he breathes, “and I shall not be responsible for my actions.”

Porthos is far too stunned, and far too happy, to respond, which seems to be exactly what Athos wants, for he merely smiles wider, pulls back, straightens both of their uniforms and cloaks, and ushers Porthos through the door into the bright heat of the day.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The horsemanship section was inspired by a previous 3M adaptation – I can’t remember which off the top of my head, maybe the Lester ones? – where there’s a brief shot of a soldier/Musketeer/court hanger-on doing pretty maneuvers for the king (or the Duke of Buckingham, maybe?). If anyone remembers which scene I’m talking about, do remind me!
> 
>  _Amoretti_ Sonnet 74:
> 
> MOST happy letters fram'd by skilfull trade,  
> with which that happy name was first defynd:  
> the which three times thrise happy hath me made,  
> with guifts of body, fortune and of mind.  
> The first my being to me gaue by kind,  
> from mothers womb deriu'd by dew descent,  
> the second is my souereigne Queene most kind,  
> that honour and large richesse to me lent.  
> The third my loue, my liues last ornament,  
> by whom my spirit out of dust was raysed:  
> to speake her prayse and glory excellent,  
> of all aliue most worthy to be praysed.  
> Ye three Elizabeths for euer liue,  
> that three such graces did vnto me giue.


	15. Til I In Hand His Yet Half-Trembling Took

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CH. 15, a fill for [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/1213.html?thread=2317501#cmt2317501): “I have no idea why, but whenever there is a forehead kiss in fic, or a kiss to the temple, it gets me every time. There is just something affectionate and unassuming and also close and comfortable in the gesture. To me it kind of denotes familiarity and history and all those things I love portrayed in these types of brotherhoods. I'd like to see a fic with 3x Athos kissed Aramis's forehead, and one time Aramis kissed Athos's forehead. Though I think I prefer Gen for this, I actually don't mind if someone wants to make it BroT3 or a pairing, I just don't want the focus to be on sex, or for the forehead kiss to be a precursor to sex or about sex. Just, warm, gentle affection or comfort, or even just gratitude or relief that the other is alive.” This is also for [grumpycathos](http://archiveofourown.org/users/grumpycathos)!

*

[](http://i.imgur.com/r2BnGh6.jpg)  
"East River in February" by [JakartaInn](http://archiveofourown.org/users/JakartaInn/pseuds/JakartaInn). Click for full-size.

*

  **I.**  

It happens so quickly, as if by the touch of a feather, that it takes Aramis several days to realize that it ever happened. He is faster to remember the all-encompassing warmth that is Porthos, in that first week after he is first brought back to Paris, blue-lipped and drifting; it had been only Porthos and Treville, after all, who dared to cross the garrison courtyard swiftly and without fear or dread of encountering their own reflections in his face, who dared to touch him and accept the transfer of death’s shade onto their skin. The others had hung back as he struggled off of the cart, away from the slow suppuration of the bodies under the sackcloth which he had sat upon – he did not expect their comfort, even as he knew their pity.

It is a surprise, therefore, for him to recall later – how much later he is never sure of – that there had been one other who joined Porthos in making up the garrison room for him, who ensured that the fire was never allowed to die down and that the light of a candle was always within his sight when he startled awake in early hours. He had known Athos only briefly before Savoy, and not thought much of him beyond his being an extension of an unparalleled blade. He had thought himself, absurdly as it turned out, the more sensible man.

But when he remembers the brief touch of stubble to his temple, on some darkened night, with Marsac lingering fleeting in the corners of his vision, he finds himself comforted; and takes comfort, indeed, in the fact that he accepts the gesture as it was meant. It is a small step to take, but one which, he is sure, will assume its proper significance, in time. 

 

**II.**

“Say it.”

Athos’s tone brooks no opposition, and Aramis, in his current state, is really in no position to argue nor bargain over his fate – but principle demands that he at least make the attempt, and so he spreads his arms out wide, proudly displaying every inch of skin, and grins. “Make me.”

“Very well,” Athos smirks, and, from his crouched position at the opening to the cellar above him, framed by torchlight, moves to put the trapdoor back in place.

“You’re a bastard!” Aramis squawks, and jumps, in vain, for the end of the dangling rope.

Athos’s only answer is a slight bow over his bent knee, his smile saying _But of course_ and _You do not deserve me_ all at once. Aramis huffs out a breath, grimaces involuntarily at the pull of bruised muscles along his chest where the offended husband _du jour_ got in a lucky punch, and crosses his arms across his chest. “ _Pitié, m’sieur. Je me rends,_ ”he says lazily, and in an instant, the rope is spooling down towards him.

Athos wraps his own dark boatcloak around him as soon as he scrambles over the lip, the heavy wool doing what it can to keep out the elements. “He didn’t see fit to leave you even your braies, I see,” Athos says as, still kneeling, he shoves the cellar door back into place. His tone makes it clear that he believes this part of Aramis’s punishment, at least, to be richly deserved.

“He didn’t take them from me,” Aramis says loftily as he swaddles himself in layers of cloth. “He happened upon me without them.”

The sound Athos makes is so uncommon that it takes a moment for Aramis to recognize that it is, indeed, a laugh, wrenching its way up into a snort of fond derision at the back of his brother’s throat. Athos leans sideways, then, grabs Aramis at the back of the neck as Porthos usually does when he’s about to threaten cheerful violence, and presses his lips to the crown of Aramis’s forehead.

“I won’t come for you next time,” he says as he stands; Aramis hobbles out after him into the street nothing but happy, and knowing that when the next time does occur, he will have to do his best to secure some boots before escaping. He can hardly expect Athos to put up with his complaints of dirty feet on yet another occasion.

 

**III.**

“Do I have your forgiveness?”

“For what? For this? No, you do not. And you should not expect it.”

“Well, I certainly wouldn’t expect you to understand it, or me, or her – no. But understanding does not preclude forgiveness.”

“You had far better try your luck with God. I have a feeling that he would take more kindly to the royal line being so speedily propagated.”

“Am I to take that as a compliment?”

“You may take it however you wish. It will not change anything.”

“Very well, then – if not your forgiveness, then I will have your blessing.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. You have never denied me it – ”

“ – though clearly I have been remiss in this regard, because by God’s own _blood_ , Aramis – ”

“ – and you will not deny me it now, when I require all of the loving protection my brothers can offer me.”

“You need no blessing to ensure our help in keeping you safe from the Cardinal.”

“It is not the Cardinal I am worried about. One realizes swiftly, when one is in over one’s head, that one’s true enemy lies much closer to home.”

“I hasten to make clear that I do this under duress.”

“But of course.”

“Very well, then.”

*

 

 **I.**  

They are on them in a flash, making the alleyway small and claustrophobic with their noise, the sheer size of them, and the percussion of bullets which send stone-dust puffing into eyes and mouths.

That the inhabitants of the Court have grown bold in their ventures out into the city at large, that they have clearly come into some favor judging by the existence of their fine weapons, and that they clearly have as much hatred for the King’s authority as ever judging by their willingness to corner and attack two Musketeers in broad daylight, occupies Aramis’s thoughts for only the briefest of moments. He is far more concerned, when the smoke clears, and it has been half an hour and the muscles of his arms and legs are trembling like a child’s whenever he attempts to do anything other than stand ramrod-straight, by the sight of Athos blood-covered and slumped against the pitted wall at his back, hands so cramped that he has not been able to let go of the hilts of his sword and main-gauche, and the dead thing, scarcely out of boyhood, lying across his boots.

It takes minutes for them to pick their way across the bodies towards the curious crowd at the alley entrance, who scatter, fearful, before their gore-spattered skin, and as Aramis puts an arm around Athos’s shoulders and tugs him round by creaking, sodden leather to face him, he is sure to smile, to make sure that Athos recognizes him and does not start back with the fear that he is looking into some horrific mirror.

“All right?” he asks, but does not expect an answer; it is something to say, to make sure at least one of them can still speak. Athos nods, to prove that his mind still works, and, since these things are more than either of them could have hoped for, Aramis leans in and lets his lips rest on Athos’s damp forehead.

This is enough, for now; later, they will need more, will need Porthos, will need wine. But this is all Aramis can offer, now, and he gives it freely, and is glad of its reception.

 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Amoretti_ Sonnet 67:
> 
> LYKE as a huntsman after weary chace,  
>  Seeing the game from him escapt away:  
>  sits downe to rest him in some shady place,  
>  with panting hounds beguiled of their pray.  
> So after long pursuit and vaine assay,  
>  when I all weary had the chace forsooke,  
>  the gentle deare returnd the selfe-same way,  
>  thinking to quench her thirst at the next brooke.  
> There she beholding me with mylder looke,  
>  sought not to fly, but fearelesse still did bide:  
>  till I in hand her yet halfe trembling tooke,  
>  and with her owne goodwill hir fyrmely tyde.  
> Strange thing me seemd to see a beast so wyld,  
>  so goodly wonne with her owne will beguyld.


	16. The Nest of Love, The Lodging of Delight

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CH. 15, a little fill for [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/774.html?thread=923398#cmt923398): "Ninon has had a few lovers before but never a lasting relationship - it's not easy to find men who will respect her and be discreet. With Athos there is no judgement and the opportunity for sexual exploration. More than that, not being accustomed to pursuing his own pleasure over the past five years and having the utmost respect for her autonomy, he's more comfortable with her taking the lead and focusing on her pleasure." Not an exact fill – I wanted it to be sexier, but the smut just wouldn’t oblige! Hope you enjoy it nonetheless, OP.

*

She barely recognizes him when he appears at her first public _salon_ of the season, dressed as he is in fine leathers and silks, hair clean and countenance calmly genteel in the dim candlelight of her library. He is attended by no servant, but nor is there the muck of the muddy street on his boots: he came on horseback, then, and must have cut a fine figure indeed on his way through the streets. Ninon is sure, at least, as he approaches through the crowd, that Athos has not come to her straight from the Musketeer garrison; that there is something in his expression as he bends over her hand that tells her that this meeting is something clandestine and precious.

She is surprised to realize that the same feeling might be true for herself, as well.

Athos does tolerably well in conversation, though his manners are somewhat old-fashioned; he is a better listener, she observes, as he attaches himself to various chattering parties of _philosophes_ throughout the evening, and better still at schooling his features into nothing more than mild amusement or the blink of an eye in perturbation at some more radical notion.

He stays until midnight, then until one, and as the groups dwindle in size she takes his arm and walks with him. This universal signal puts paid to the rest of the men in the room – many her friends, some of whom she respects well – who, their chances publicly thwarted, take their leave. She does not care to see off the rest of her guests, and takes only the time necessary to make sure her ladies have safe, trusted conveyance homeward before she takes him into the library and revels in the touch of his hands returning to her waist, and the feather-touch of lips on her cheek just to begin.

“What would my lady?” he asks, and she sighs, and cannot disguise her fatigue. He is perceptive, she knows, and responds to her silence with the press of thumbs at her hips; though he is no romantic in speech, Athos knows how to wait for her, something rare in her experience, and all-too-welcome now, with the shadow of the Cardinal creeping over her thresholds.

“I do not wish to do anything, for my part,” Ninon murmurs, and for the briefest of moments feels unjust – but when she draws back and sees that his face is placid with that so-familiar tinge of exasperation and fondness which purports to know her so well, all thought of responsibility eases from her mind.

“I am like-minded,” he says in reply, “as to my own part. But as for yours, I am entirely at your service.”

Sitting, later, with a glass of wine in her hand and his head pillowed on her thigh as the fire dies down, she finds herself falling asleep to the rhythm of strong fingers massaging her foot and ankle, freed from their stockings and ribbons. It is rare, she knows, for him to be like this, and she takes no little pleasure in the thought that she has played her part in rendering him thus.

Ninon puts her long fingers under her chin, suggests only the smallest of movements, and like Odysseus too long parted from Penelope he turns willing and deliberate, and presses his mouth to the lip of her corset, his wandering hand climbing easily up the smooth lines of embroidered silk, past her knee, slow and careful and exactly what she needs to feel that she is not only safe from danger, but indeed fiercely protected from it. She kisses him, feeds him the wine still on her tongue, and still he waits, until she grabs for his hand, pushes it into her thigh until his fingers will leave marks, and he takes this – rightly – as his permission.

Athos tells her, later, that to see her wholly selfish in her pleasures is just as high a perfection as her carefully-constructed and righteous altruism; whispers, filthily, that she is more beautiful to behold here, stays loosened and hair falling in cascades over her shoulders where she sits on the edge of her bed with him knelt before her, than anywhere else – not for the distinction of being one of the few to see her unmasked, but for the joyful accomplishment some part of her happiness.

He undresses himself with all the efficiency of a soldier as she moans, one of his hands still joining his mouth in working at her; there is no pause, no moment of abatement that she could not bear, between the removal of his fingers and the quick spin til she lies atop him and she has complete control of how he lies inside her. Ninon moves but slowly, knowing that her wants can be satisfied in many ways (no woman in France, she wagers, knows better both the science and the satisfaction of her sex), knowing her body as she does.

Athos is not immune to this moment, could never be – she is not so unfeeling as to deny him what is, after all, entirely natural – and, indeed, she knew that he had realized her complete and utter knowledge of his fear of himself, the first night they had spent together. But he gives her what she most craves, the recuperative power of silence – no sound but for what they themselves produce, unguarded and helpless.

She has always loved, since first she discovered it – far later than she should have done, and for a moment she forgets herself and curses the obstinacy of men – the sensation of knowing that she is to be carried over some clifftop, as though by a hurricane. Athos takes her nipple between his teeth, worries it, knowing and remembering how much she wants this base appreciation of her sex, and she settles down against him, finds that place where his length is pressed just so against her, and rocks there until she screams, flat palms and curled fingers hard against his chest.

Sometimes, in this moment afterwards, Ninon finds herself wanting to be alone, will leave him lying there and apologies be damned, for she does not owe him anything, nor does he expect it. This is not one of those nights; this is a time when she waits drowsily for his hands to plane cool and gentle along her spine, exaggerating every curve of her waist and legs, smoothing any human imperfection into nothingness. This is a time when Athos waits until she feels ready to speak to him, to rearrange her tired muscles until she is curled into and around him, careless of the fire dying and the candles sputtering.

Perhaps it is this, then, that she waits for whenever he comes into her presence: not to fall asleep alone, nor wishing to be so.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m aware that this obviously doesn’t fit in the timeline of the episode at all, but c’est la guerre…
> 
> Spenser’s getting a little dirty in _Amoretti_ Sonnet 76:
> 
> FAYRE bosome fraught with vertues richest tresure,  
>  The neast of loue, the lodging of delight:  
>  the bowre of blisse, the paradice of pleasure,  
>  the sacred harbour of that heuenly spright.  
> How was I rauisht with your louely sight,  
>  and my frayle thoughts too rashly led astray?  
>  whiles diuing deepe through amorous insight,  
>  on the sweet spoyle of beautie they did pray.  
> And twixt her paps like early fruit in May,  
>  whose haruest seemd to hasten now apace:  
>  they loosely did theyr wanton winges display,  
>  and there to rest themselues did boldly place.  
> Sweet thoughts I enuy your so happy rest,  
>  which oft I wisht, yet neuer was so blest.


	17. Scorn of Base Things, and Disdain of Foul Dishonour

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CH. 17, inspired by [this prompt](http://bbcmusketeerskink.dreamwidth.org/1213.html?thread=1843389#cmt1843389): “Richelieu might be a pit viper, but he also hates to be in anyone's debt, and despite what he did to resolve the Ninon situation, he knows he owes Athos his life. Inspired mainly by the episode where Richelieu basically warns Milady to leave Athos alone (although at that point only because Athos was on 'the king's business') - this time, someone has inappropriate intentions towards Athos, and Richelieu finds out about it. Whether he confronts the person directly and warns them off, or passes the information to Treville (who then proceeds to keep Athos within about five feet of him at all times until the person has left the city) up to nonny.”

*

During his convalescence, the Cardinal finds himself to be inordinately fond of paperwork.

It is an unusual impulse, but so is being poisoned; he supposes that rarity merits rarity, and finds a soothing quietude in being able to send whomever he chooses out of his presence without so much as a by your leave, requiring no complex excuses, leaving him to his solitude and the smell of fresh ink.

It takes him a week to feel inclined to address, even in his own mind, the matter of debts newly owed. Treville, God damn and bless the man, has at least sent no message, no demand, no smug taunt; he is too much the honorable gentleman to gloat over his enemy’s misfortune, and Richelieu cannot help but appreciate the space and time the sentiment gives him while continuing to mock its origins. Thankfully, too, keeping to his bed means Richelieu does not have to deal with the no-doubt less circumspect feelings of Treville’s men; there comes a moment, however, when he must acknowledge them.

It takes him very little time to decide that he owes nothing to the followers; Du Vallon, d’Herblay, and d’Artagnan were not, after all, the ones whose bullet tore the assassin’s bulk from Richelieu’s body, however unnecessary that shot may ultimately have been. His debt is partially paid, too, for he gave Athos back a life that had been due to end, and the inevitable nuisance that will arise from the Comtesse de Larroque’s continued existence will no doubt end up in his lap again.

But even he is not so much of a churl to deny that he owes something rather more for the certainty of his life; and he knows, too, that the man he has recently discovered to be the Comte de la Fere is worthy of more than what he has given.

Richelieu ponders on the problem for a few weeks, considering and discarding several options in turn. A gift of money would be too obvious, and far too tawdry even if it were to be accepted. A title or some other noble honor is out of the question, for the sake of several secrecies. A private audience would at least have a semblance of dignity about it, but knowledge of it would quickly become public, and he doubts he and the Musketeer could have very much to say to each other.

In the end, it is pure accident which provides him with the chance to clear his name of this frankly annoying duty. An overhead conversation between two Red Guards is all it takes; he is more disgusted with their incompetence by the month, and the discovery that two of their senior officers are planning to fulfill their year’s quota of entertainment by killing a Musketeer, thereby restarting the childish and dangerous feud between the two camps, is hardly surprising. That they are passably intelligent enough, and cowards enough, to have decided among themselves that it is the Drunk, the Captain’s favorite, that they will ambush is both mildly intriguing and the perfect opening.

Richelieu does so enjoy his little games – that this is the first after his near-death experience makes it all the sweeter. He sets Milady on the trail of the miscreant guards, without detailing what their anticipated crime might be; she raises her eyebrows coolly at the idea that he seeks to disgrace his own men rather than just dismissing them, which is well within his rights, but does as he asks, vanishing into her customary shadows. Richelieu finds sending her unknowingly to help her estranged husband startlingly satisfying.

To warn Treville is a more onerous task, but one also entirely necessary in order to establish that his intentions are pure. The Captain greets him quietly upon his return to public life, with a grim smile, a nod, and an undercurrent of genuine pleasure at the statesman’s good fortune that makes Richelieu’s teeth itch. _Insufferable fool_ , he sighs to himself, and, once he has shrugged off the effusive, fawning love of the King at the return of his bedrock, he draws Treville aside into private consultation.

“Your man, Athos,” he begins, feeling no need to beat about the bush, and wants to frown at the expression of understanding which settles across Treville’s face briefly; the Captain, he knows, is not about to hear what he expects to hear. “He is in danger.”

Treville’s shoulders tense, the soldier and twice-damned bulldog making its appearance as he points a stern finger into Richelieu’s face. “If this is another of your games – ”

 _Of sorts_ , Richelieu thinks, all the while adopting the appropriately hurt expression he knows Treville will believe. “Believe me, I wish I were. I am investigating the culprits, but in the meantime you had better take care of your men, and keep them close.”

He can see all sorts of denials and insistences and insults flit through Treville’s eyes – _Of course I take care of them_ and _What do you take me for_ and _Do you really think me such a careless fool_ – well, yes, at least that last is true – before the Captain steps stiffly back and takes his leave. From now on, all that is required of the Cardinal is vigilance.

Treville keeps close to the court for the following week, and his Lieutenant comes with him. Athos shows no outward sign of being perturbed by Richelieu’s presence or his implied meddling when they are all in the same room as the king; he follows closely on his commander’s heels, his bows are silent and deep. Now that he sees him more frequently, Richelieu finds it hard to believe that he himself was unaware of the Musketeer’s lineage for so long; it is written in the learned grace of every one of the former Comte’s movements, every carefully-schooled expression, every quick turn of foot and steady moment of ignoring the louts wearing the Cardinal’s red.

It takes Milady four days to dig up what he needs on his officers – petty noblemen themselves, it is far too easy to discover unpaid taxes, misdemeanors on their distance estates, the mistreatment of women or vassals or cheating in their relationships with their various liege lords – as well as several recommendations for slightly less-tarnished men who could replace them. The task of severing them from his presence and his reputation is done swiftly, in paper, and Richelieu need not bother himself with the details of seeing their quick retreat into indignity and out of the court.

He and Athos do meet, in the end, again by chance. The scene is modest – an abandoned corridor, a brief nod and murmur of greetings as they pass by each other. The Musketeer is heavily armed, but his expression mild enough to promise casual, unbearably polite hatred; Richelieu’s weapons are rather less conspicuous, but no less dangerous.

Richelieu turns on a whim, calls out. “It is settled, then.”

“I am not sure why you ever thought yourself obliged in the first place, my Lord,” Athos responds, without looking back.

Richelieu, as he returns to his rooms, does not allow himself to feel unsettled by the implication that he has wasted his time. A debt, after all, can always be incurred to one’s own self.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really can’t believe it’s been so long since I updated this – all I have to offer in my defense is a typical tale of woe which includes Life Being Sucky, School Being Crazy, and the invasion of my tiny forgetful heart by another fandom (Obi-Wan has a lot to answer for). I’ve still got a small backlog of old prompts I liked that I want to work through, though – I hope you enjoyed this one!
> 
>   
> _Amoretti_ Sonnet V: 
> 
> RVDELY thou wrongest my deare harts desire,  
> In finding fault with her too portly pride:  
> the thing which I doo most in her admire,  
> is of the world vnworthy most enuide.  
> For in those lofty lookes is close implide,  
> scorn of base things, & sdeigne of foule dishonor:  
> thretning rash eies which gaze on her so wide,  
> that loosely they ne dare to looke vpon her.  
> Such pride is praise, such portlinesse is honor,  
> that boldned innocence beares in her eies:  
> and her faire countenance like a goodly banner,  
> spreds in defiaunce of all enemies.  
> Was neuer in this world ought worthy tride,  
> without some spark of such self-pleasing pride.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I think I Witnessed a Crime](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1405777) by [AgarthanGuide](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AgarthanGuide/pseuds/AgarthanGuide)
  * [That Renownèd Peer](https://archiveofourown.org/works/2137209) by [TheaShire](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheaShire/pseuds/TheaShire)




End file.
